I've always wanted to build a site that does a tl;dr of advice books, since it always feels like a few simple things plus a boatload of stories and blah blah etc.
If you want a piece of http://www.squeezedbooks.com , you're welcome to it. I'd love to hear your ideas about making it better.
Phillip Greenspun puts it rather nicely on a review of "Crossing the Chasm": "This book illustrates a fault in the publishing industry. If you have a 50-page idea it is too long for a magazine. But it is too short for a book. So if you wanted to get it distributed before the Web came along, you had to drop in words until you reached 200 pages."
But that takes the fun out of reading the books. Plus, the advice in the Carnegie book are well known. As in, they're pretty obvious. But i think the way he tells the story to emphasize his point is what makes the book such a classic.
I too resisted reading it for a long time because of the silly title and because I don't like reading "advice" books. But i broke down a few years ago and actually read it and it was a good read.
Ironically, I feel that Getting Things Done (of all things :) needs this treatment more than many other books. I think GTD ideas would be much better digestible in form of concise 30-50 page article as opposed to the tedious and inflated read the actual book is.
Comments
I've always wanted to build a site that does a tl;dr of advice books, since it always feels like a few simple things plus a boatload of stories and blah blah etc.
If you want a piece of http://www.squeezedbooks.com , you're welcome to it. I'd love to hear your ideas about making it better.
Phillip Greenspun puts it rather nicely on a review of "Crossing the Chasm": "This book illustrates a fault in the publishing industry. If you have a 50-page idea it is too long for a magazine. But it is too short for a book. So if you wanted to get it distributed before the Web came along, you had to drop in words until you reached 200 pages."
But that takes the fun out of reading the books. Plus, the advice in the Carnegie book are well known. As in, they're pretty obvious. But i think the way he tells the story to emphasize his point is what makes the book such a classic.
I too resisted reading it for a long time because of the silly title and because I don't like reading "advice" books. But i broke down a few years ago and actually read it and it was a good read.
Ironically, I feel that Getting Things Done (of all things :) needs this treatment more than many other books. I think GTD ideas would be much better digestible in form of concise 30-50 page article as opposed to the tedious and inflated read the actual book is.