Mark said he would buy the textbooks himself before the hurricane strikes. He strolled through the streets of New Brunswick, thinking about all the excitement the new semester would bring. He entered the bookstore and proceeded promptly to the basement, and then to the third aisle. He snatched up his French textbook, took a quick glimpse at the price tag and began to frown — $148.35. Shortly thereafter he learned that the textbook contains a one-time online access code and thus cannot be resold. Mark let out a big sigh, and slowly and hesitantly walked back upstairs.

It may be a little peculiar that I, Mark Kim, am unhappy about buying a textbook. Being the big nerd that I am, I have a tendency to hoard books. I must have spent close to $4,000 buying the textbooks — yes, textbooks — sitting on my not-so-little bookshelf. Though a majority of them are mathematics textbooks, plenty are at best loosely connected to my field of study. Then why must I, a lover of textbooks, cringe whenever I buy my textbooks for many of my classes?

The answer is that many of them are simply not worthwhile purchases. Indeed, the state of the textbook market is atrocious. The prose in science textbooks is not human-readable; in many humanities textbooks, the prose is marred by low-quality filler text surrounding the read-this-and-nothing-else boldfaced sentences. Each new edition of an already horrendous textbook brings no improvement, but bears only a minor permutation in section and page numbers, so that it can be force-fed to new students. The prices are reaching heights every year, yet the highly specialized editorial staff who supposedly justifies this inflation lets even the most inane mistakes slip through the cracks. One cannot shake off the feeling that the powers that be are conspiring against him to pay an inordinate amount of money for a book he will never want to read.

All is well, perhaps, if the professor actually makes you use the textbook. All is well if you get to sell back the textbook at a reasonable price. The problem persists, however, even when money is not the issue. The abundance of low-quality textbooks affects the lower-division education as well, when the students are getting the textbooks “for free.” The textbooks are so poorly written that many students never come to accept the simple idea of learning by reading. Every idea must be explained; another generation of people whose educational experiences cease completely at graduation is engendered.

Can you, dear reader, imagine a classic textbook, read by generation after generation? Most likely not, I would imagine: The typical textbooks you have in mind will perhaps run through a few more editions and sink forever into oblivion. There are such things, however, as classic textbooks. Take “A Course of Pure Mathematics” by the British mathematician G. H. Hardy, for example. Originally written in 1908, it is still one of the most widely read introductory college level mathematics textbook. College mathematics curricula changed substantially since then, and “Pure Mathematics” cannot be used as a textbook for a course anymore. Even so, its popularity among students of mathematics has not faded.

“Pure Mathematics” is the product of a time when there was barely a textbook market to speak of. Since there was no such occupation as a textbook writer, each textbook was written by a writer. It would appear the same standard of prose that essay writers and novelists adhere to was expected of a textbook writer. As such, a substantial number of old textbooks were well written, and it was not uncommon for several generations to share the same basic textbooks.

The human knowledge is expanding more rapidly than ever, and perhaps it is impossible for different generations to use the same textbooks. Each will require different kinds of knowledge, and new textbooks will have to be written. I do believe however, that the textbook writers of our time could learn a thing or two from their predecessors. As the legendary mathematical expositor Paul Halmos wrote, “Mathematical writing is ephemeral, to be sure, but if you want to reach your audience now, you must write as if for the ages.” Ideally, textbook writers of any field should follow this dictum.