Each year college students in America spend approximately $5.5 billion on textbooks. With each student spending roughly $900 on books assigned by professors, are these dollars being well spent and are students receiving a fair return on their investment? More importantly, do these texts serve the integral function in the courses as described in professors' syllabi? Textbooks, if properly integrated into a course, can aid in student learning by providing a "layered approach" to a subject (learning by revisiting topics with increasing insights). In this article, the author describes how he incorporates weekly quizzes into his courses to encourage his students to read their college textbooks. He opines that teachers' responsibilities should extend beyond simply ordering books and should include strategies which cause their students actually to read. (Contains 2 tables.)