Finding a rigorous EM book with applications I'm a mathematician who would like your help getting the right text for EM to suit my needs.
I want to learn more a bit about applied EM. Mainly about antennas and transmission lines, reciprocity, stuff like that.
I have now tried three books and they have all had something that didn't work for me. Usually, it is not this hard for me to find the right book on a topic.
I tried Zangwill's, but it assumed too much familiarity with the subject, and still seemed light on the applications I was interested in.
I also tried Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics and am having the opposite problem. It's not nearly rigorous enough. I much prefer the theorem - proof style of books over the engineering style.
I love the level and style of Griffth's, but it doesn't cover the applications I am interested in. (It only talks about antennas as a point source and doesn't go through the telegrapher's equations)
I have also Balanis's book on Antenna theory, but this was too long and assumed too much familiarity with applied EM. It went too in depth.
My perfect text would feel like Griffth's but would include a chapter on transmission lines and a chapter on antennas. Prefer short reads to long reads.
Also often times the failure to find an answer can mean there is something wrong with the question. Please let me know if I am not sizing this up correctly. I'm a noob to EM.
I'm not trying to become an antenna theorist, I just want to look at things like an antenna or a generator and think about it the way a physicist does.
 A: I am completely biased, having read through a dozen or more antenna books over my life, for I have never seen a pedagogically better and also more careful analysis of how EM radiation/scattering works than the one in the first 6 chapters of the true classic of all antenna books Silver.
For example, where else would you find derived, analyzed and explained with its consequences this gem, page 172, Eq. 7a and 7b?
A: 
It's not nearly rigorous enough. I much prefer the theorem - proof style of books over the engineering style.

Let me first address this point: if you want books oriented to the applications you will not likely find books written as theorem-proof style, but that doesn't mean necessarily less rigorous.
When I was a student, I specialized in electromagnetics and a few favourite books that I collected along the years are:

*

*S. Ramo et al. Fields and waves in communication electronics, 3rd ed., Wiley, 1994. This is a classic text that covers all the main topics, including transmission lines and antennas.

*L. B. Felsen et. al, Electromagnetic Field Computation by Network Methods, Springer, 2009. Felsen is one of the pioneers for what concerns electromagnetic field computations, and this is a very thorough book, more oriented to waveguides and transmission lines. I'd approach this after the one of S. Ramo et. al.

*L. B. Felsen and N. Marcuvitz, Radiation and scattering of waves, 2003, Wiley. This is a reissue of the 1994 edition. This is another classic and thorough text, probably a bit old-fashioned for what concerns the presentation style.

Books 1 and 2 allow one to construct the basics in a sound way, even though they probably miss the most recent developments, but should be enough to allow one to keep up with recent papers.
Final note: absolutely learn how to analyze electromagnetic problems with network methods, because these methods are the most suitable and insightful for applications.
A: Maybe Electromagnetic Waves and Antennas by Orfanidis is what you're looking for.
A: You've tried most of the great references, I think what you need is lecture notes or if you have time watching the lectures videos, with this, you can extract even more useful concepts in the books you've mentioned. You can search for them, for example MIT open courses can be helpful, or you can find lectures on YouTube.
