[iansinke]

I would have to disagree with the general statement that "textbooks suck". Stewart's calculus ("the violin book") is really a great textbook, and it's used very widely. Serway Jewett is a superb Physics textbook. The examples, in particular, are excellent (sometimes humorous or intriguing.)

Also, textbooks are long. But most courses don't use the entire textbook. I took 3 math courses and 2 physics courses in first year using those two textbooks and we didn't use every section, nor did we have to read every page.

I think having example problems which have stood the test of time (more than 20 years for those 2 textbooks, I think) is worthwhile.

[andrewflnr]

I'm taking the Serway and Jewett physics right now, and I actually hate it. Their explanations of tricky concepts kind of suck. For example, it doesn't even try to explain why a hot gas is less ordered than a cool one (it's the same amount of information, the same number of real numbers, right?). I only got a vague understanding after scouring Wikipedia and later portions of the chapter. Stewart is pretty decent though, AFAICT.