Textbook Junkie
I recently reflected on the topic of textbooks and discovered that I have an obsession. I love textbooks. I am a textbook junkie. I don’t know where my love of textbooks came from exactly but that they have totally saved me many, many times. I grew up in an educational era where we had to go to the library to pick out our books to read. eBooks weren’t really a thing and the physical holding of a book was necessary to extrapolate the information. I have read amazing textbooks and others who I have forced myself to read because I have had to.
I love when textbooks read like a novel, a consistent story from beginning to end. And yes, textbooks that describe the sciences can read so well. It’s not that I expect a textbook to make everything so very clear that I have no mental gymnastics to complete but that the book is so well written that it doesn’t get in the way of the content. A few weeks ago, I had a delivery of textbooks that made me so excited that I pushed my other work aside and just dug right on in. I love the smell of the paper, the crispness of the cover, the brilliance of the colours and the mastery of the authors words…..ah, refreshing!
As I gaze upon my library I am glad that there continues to be the pursuit of excellent writing that is still being printed for students to read. I could only hope some day to contribute to something so powerful. It is still one of my life goals to write books. I have many drafts for a fun writing adventure, and also ideas sketched out that would compose the perfect science text. Until that time, I will continue to be a textbook nerd.
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