When I was in first year I went through my father's old university physics textbook and compared it to mine (we both studied engineering). His was a quarter of

When I was in first year I went through my father's old university physics textbook and compared it to mine (we both studied engineering). His was a quarter of the physical area of mine, but covered essentially all the same topics. The writing of his was terse, clear and compact, whereas mine was generally verbose and meandering (though this is of course a subjective analysis). As far as I can tell in the 30 odd years between our university experiences the quality of textbooks has seriously declined.