Do you read math & hard science books? How?
zackattack: I would try to take them cover-to-cover and then use them as reference. Also, perhaps, if you really wanted to learn the material, you would simply check them out of the library. There's been an article posted on the frontpage recently about how verbalizing a goal makes it less likely to be actualized: I think a parallel occurs with buying books (I experience the same phenomenon).Get'em from the library, yo.