So, today I was browsing through my Plant Phys textbook. Mind you, I put my actual textbooks (Plant Phys, Animal Phys, and Cell Bio, as well as a book on Biomechanics that is unlikely to be used in a course) away in the closet until I actually take those courses at the university (as part of my double major in Biology and Geoscience), which are either updated editions or are a different text altogether. And I may not take such a course at all. (If that is the case, they will be judged then.)
Also, based on present conditions, there would be more information than needed for current purposes in those books; as opposed to popular titles like the Scientific American Library I collect (among others). Yet I have donated them when I was ready to move on, given that I got a good grasp on it. Moreover, many of my college courses in both majors may reflect much of their content.
As for the content of the Plant Phys text (and all other properly defined textbooks), which looks worthless now, may be worthy and useful when it is done in the context of a course. But since I am not at that level yet (at least not scholastically, though I know quite a bit at the undergrad level outside of classwork), I am reading this material through the lens of one ill-equipped. After I earn my degree, it should be second nature, whether I work following then in something related to biology, earth science, a little of both — or even neither!
But, rather than throwing them away (as I have often done previously), I’ll just put them away somewhere, until I encounter those subjects along the line in college (or if the Lord directs me, by self-study, or grad school, etc.)
Textbooks were never meant to be novels!
(The title of the post, by the way, happens to be the moral of this whole account!)
The Adventures of a Christian Bookworm 