Intro 

Look I know what you’re thinking … 

You’re thinking, “Are you kidding? Textbooks are the dullest, most lifeless, deepest vortexes of soul-suck known to humankind. Their suck goes down to the sub-atomic level. 

You’re thinking about how you hated your chemistry textbook so much that you literally threw it out the window . . . twice.”  

Okay . . . deep calming breaths . . . I get it . . . but  . . . hear me out. 

I’m willing to bet that I can convince you that the textbook is one of the most underappreciated genres of all time. 

Because the truth is that textbooks are free of some constraints that bind nearly every other genre. Listen on, to find out what they are. 

I Heart This, everybody. I’m Ben Lord. Let’s talk about what we love. 

Hook

OMFG  . . . do I love myself a good textbook. It’s a bit of a problem, actually. In a quick scan of my bookshelf, I tallied over seventy-five . . . twenty just on biology. And I don’t just collect them. I read and reread them as compulsively as people read the latest Rebecca Yarros fantasy series, even if . . . admittedly  . . . the sex scenes aren’t quite as hot. 

When you truly love something, it’s pretty much impossible to explain that love with reasons. Love is many things, but reasonable is not one of them. 

Still, the whole point of this podcast is to explain why things are surprisingly awesome . . . so  . . . challenge accepted!  

Why I Love Textbooks

Knowledge

It kind of goes without saying that textbooks are full of things to learn, and, holy cow do I love to learn stuff! But that, on its own, isn’t enough to explain why someone without OCD would own 78 textbooks. (Yeah . . . 78 . . . I recounted.) In a world of endless information, learning stuff is easy. You might sensibly ask why not just go to the internet which is infinitely searchable  . . . or to more popular nonfiction writers like Adam Grant or Malcomb Gladwell. 

But textbooks have things that neither of those have. 

The View

There’s a clue right in the name. The word ‘text’ comes from the Latin word for weaving, texere, and it’s related to the word ‘textile.’ The connection might seem weird until you know that ‘text’ came to describe not just the cloth, the literal product of weaving, but also the way it is woven–its ‘texture’ and how an individual thread fit into it–its ‘context.’  . . . hoo . . . Doesn’t that just send tingles down your etymological spine? To call a book a “text” is to evoke how its ideas are woven together. Context is its job.

And while information may be cheap and easily available in today’s world, context is at a premium. The world is dangerously full of people who have information without context, like RFK Jr. spouting complicated arguments about fluoride in the water, even as he makes forehead-slapping errors about basic high school chemistry. Or, as Scott Young puts it, “I find it baffling that people have complex economic and political philosophies but haven’t learned concepts like supply and demand.” 

On a practical level, I appreciate textbooks as a kind of defense against this learned stupidity. But in my heart, what’s more important is how beautiful it is to see a whole field of study, all at once. My favorite texts give me the same dizzy excitement I get when I climb out of the forest onto a mountaintop overlook. There it is! An entire field of study! It just makes you want to stare and marvel at its grandeur. 

Organization 

But, even better, it’s not just an expansive view; it’s an organized one. There is something immensely satisfying about scrolling through pictures of Marie Kondo closets. To me, there is the same kind of delight in seeing all of that algebra tidily organized into chapters. Real knowledge might be messy and circuitous and full of noise. But my human brain can’t handle it raw. Textbooks give me the illusion of order long enough to get my bearings. 

Now, all of this is great. But I think the real reason, the most important reason that textbooks have captured my heart is because of something they don’t do.  

Sensationalism 

The internet might be searchable and clickable and entertaining. Popular non-fiction might be thought-provoking and captivating. But that’s because they have to be. YouTube videos and non-fiction bestsellers might be very conscientious about their facts, but accuracy alone is never their purpose. If your video isn’t entertaining, it gets out-clicked by the ones that are. If your book isn’t captivating, it gets remaindered. The marketplace selects for what sells. 

In all of this crowded media environment, textbooks are unique. They alone don’t have this constraint. They alone don’t have to be interesting or provocative or gripping. Students have to buy them, whether they find them interesting or not . . .so, textbooks alone are free to simply describe what is. are free to tell the most careful, most balanced, most accurate account of how things actually are . . . even if it isn’t surprising or meaningful or counterintuitive. It’s something that hardly any other writer or creator can afford to do.

And because they do not have to impress you with how cool they are . . . they can let the coolness of their subject shine through, unadorned. They can be bastions of clear thought, unclouded by marketing, standing like lighthouses in a shallow ocean of clickbait. 

Again, this is both practical and beautiful . . . beautiful in the way that cult films or obscure bands are beautiful to their fans. There is something pure about the love that an artist pours into something that will never make them wealthy or famous. So it is for most texts. Writing them is lonely and impractical, but their authors keep on . . . because what they are writing about matters to them, even if they don’t stand to benefit. Have you ever loved something that no one else cared about? Did it not sweeten the joy of finding even just one other heart who did? That is how I feel about the 82 textbooks on my shelf. 

Textbooks Suck: Rebuttals

Even after all of that, you might still, rightly, have some serious doubts about trading in your latest issue of Cosmo for Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition. 

Expensive

You might complain that texts are expensive, but that’s not actually true. The only textbooks that are expensive are the current editions, the ones that captive schools or students are forced to buy. For the rest of us, texts are virtually free. Not even used book stores will buy them. Heck, I can’t even put them in the book drop at our local dump. 

Difficult to Read

Maybe you’ll complain that they are difficult to read. And I won’t argue with you. But the best ones are only hard to read because the ideas in them are hard to learn. And to me, that seems well worth doing. Learning, like love, is hard sometimes, but it’s not a chore. I hear it’s not easy to play football, but people still seem to do that for fun. 

Boring 

But by far the biggest reason people won’t pick up textbooks, is that they think they are boring. “I’m not going to learn anything,” they might say, “if I fall asleep halfway through page one. It doesn’t change the fact that textbook prose is like mental novacaine.”

Now I know that there is no accounting for taste, and that boring is in the eye of the beholder … but … No! I reject that out of hand. Textbooks are not inherently boring any more than mysteries are inherently formulaic or than romances are inherently trashy! Textbooks are like any other kind of book. Many of them suck. Many of the ones that don’t, still just won’t appeal to you. 

Many textbooks are truly boring, but most books in any genre are bad. When we go to the library, we expect to have to search for a novel. We know that if we want to find the right one, we’re going to have to put the effort in. And we know that most novels just aren’t going to cut it. So why do we expect textbooks to be any different? 

I suspect that it’s because we were never given the chance. For almost everyone, the only texts they’ve ever read were the ones they were forced to read in school. And they didn’t get to pick them out. You know who did? Mr. Bebo, the head of the Math department! And would you trust him to pick out a book that you liked? The guy couldn’t even pick out a matching shirt and tie. So, if you haven’t yet found a textbook that speaks to your heart, mind, and soul, maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough yet. 

Just don’t tell me that textbooks are all boring. Because I have read so many that are witty, insightful, and elegant. Like with any other genre, there are true masterpieces. If you want to see an English lover swoon, just mention Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style. Paul Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics is so clear and so plain that even someone who “never got science” could not help but enjoy it. Plus, its hand-drawn illustrations are absolutely charming. Reading Brian Magee’s History of Philosophy was like finding Narnia in the wardrobe. And my whole family, I kid you not, laughed out loud last night while I read aloud from the 1979 edition of The Roots of Modern English. 

Invitation

Assumptions About You

Look, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you like. But based on the fact that you are still listening 15 minutes into a self-described gratitude podcast for nerds, I’m going to make some unsubstantiated assumptions about you. One, you’re willing to read. Two, you get something valuable from the ideas of other people. Three, whether its carpentry, cooking, or calculus, there is something you want to know about this strange and wonderful world we live in. If not … well, then . . . you probably aren’t gonna get anything out of a textbook. But if it IS you . . . I’m willing to bet that a good textbook might just be one of the most satisfying reading experiences of your life. 

And IF it is you . . . here’s some unsolicited but well-intentioned advice. 

Go explore! Somewhere there is a nerd who has devoted their life to just the thing you want to know and they wrote a book about it, hoping it would find someone just like you. It might take some looking, but that’s okay, for $15 you can get three classic texts and just keep the one you like. (Personally, I’ve just counted 86 that I just can’t seem to part with.) Find the ones that call to you, just like you would for your next favorite movie or song. Remember, that now YOU get to pick. You’re no longer at the mercy of some academic department. And, you can read however you want. You can be sequential  . . . or wander to whatever pages call to you. There is no test. And you don’t even have to finish. If your text is full of rabbitholes, follow them. Read with a notebook in hand because the real magic of a text is not just the words, but in the interaction between your thoughts and some of the most powerful ideas in history. Get lost in there. Don’t worry about whether you’re learning something. This isn’t an assignment. This is play. 

Then, after you’ve found something delightful, and your notebook is full of the doodles and quotes, stop for a moment  . . . and let your gaze spread out over the words on the page . . . over the fabric  . . . over the texture . . . You hold in your hands the collaborative effort of thousands of lives. Some single sentences in this book took centuries of effort to win. Some of these paragraphs represent generations of inquiry by some of humanity’s sharpest minds . . . And here you sit, the inheritor of a tremendous gift. This book, in your lap, is the product of one of the greatest collective efforts in history. 

Then close the book. Put it to your nose. and breathe in the scent of its pages with a grateful heart. 

Outro

Hey, friends! If you also think there is something pure about the love that an artist pours into something that will never make them wealthy or famous. There are three things you could do to support this one.  

1. Make sure that you’ve subscribed. 
2. Leave a comment, wherever you’re listening, to tell folks what you liked. 
3. Send a friend the link to an episode that you think they’d enjoy. 

Those things will only take a second, but they really help us to spread our message of appreciation, something I think the world really needs right now. 

And thanks. 

I Heart This is written, edited, and produced by me, Ben Lord. Our logo was designed by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Our website is iheartthispodcast.com. Thank you so much for listening. And, as always, Be kind. Be curious, and be thankful.