I actually think most non-fiction books are not worth the time, and you'd be better off reading a summary of the ideas and/or just going directly to an encyclopedic resource on the underlying subject matter.
The contemporary publishing industry is designed around expanding an often very simple idea into a book-length treatment, typically to support the author's book tour and consulting career. It is not designed to create beautifully-written books that are worth reading in their entirety.
None of this applies to fiction, in case that was unclear. It also doesn't apply as much to biographical-style books that offer some insight into the author's life and mindset.
I agree. I think most such books could be easily summarized into perhaps a quarter of its original word count, without significantly affecting any value that its readers may gain from it.
So many books just pad with anecdotes. If I could get a "just the important anecdotes" version of a book, I absolutely would. Few isolated concepts that a single book is tackling (that isn't specifically for a specialized field) should be over 300 pages. Page count is an actual turn off of a book for me if it's a non-fiction "I want to learn this thing" kind of book. I'm not trying to waste that much time.
Now, if this is something like a software book and they cover a large amount of concepts, that's a different story, but if I'm reading a book like Jack Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" (may have butchered that name), it should be short and to the point for the average reader. Leave the rest to an economics text book.
I used to get it as perk with my company and it wasn't an in depth analysis or anything but it covered the bases for such books in a way that felt useful
Wholeheartedly agree. And I think the problem has gotten worse for a few reasons. One is that if you’re interested in a subject, you likely follow it closely online, so reading a book-length treatment feels like learning a lot of stuff you already know. Two is that publishers try to find authors with social media audiences who likely already published all their good ideas for free and now have to dredge for additional material that’s usually less interesting.
When I was a child and teenager I loved science fiction. When I became an adult I shunned fiction as a waste of time and read only nonfiction books. Then I started to find that most nonfiction books could be summarized in a blog post or Wikipedia entry, regurgitated well established ideas, or spewed unfounded bullshit. I’ve since flipped my perspective again. I think good fiction is worth reading at book length while most nonfiction is better consumed in blog posts, articles, journal papers, or via a ChatGPT tutoring session.
I will highlight one consistent exception. I love every book I’ve read by Yuval Noah Harari.
Comments
I actually think most non-fiction books are not worth the time, and you'd be better off reading a summary of the ideas and/or just going directly to an encyclopedic resource on the underlying subject matter.
The contemporary publishing industry is designed around expanding an often very simple idea into a book-length treatment, typically to support the author's book tour and consulting career. It is not designed to create beautifully-written books that are worth reading in their entirety.
None of this applies to fiction, in case that was unclear. It also doesn't apply as much to biographical-style books that offer some insight into the author's life and mindset.
I agree. I think most such books could be easily summarized into perhaps a quarter of its original word count, without significantly affecting any value that its readers may gain from it.
So many books just pad with anecdotes. If I could get a "just the important anecdotes" version of a book, I absolutely would. Few isolated concepts that a single book is tackling (that isn't specifically for a specialized field) should be over 300 pages. Page count is an actual turn off of a book for me if it's a non-fiction "I want to learn this thing" kind of book. I'm not trying to waste that much time.
Now, if this is something like a software book and they cover a large amount of concepts, that's a different story, but if I'm reading a book like Jack Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" (may have butchered that name), it should be short and to the point for the average reader. Leave the rest to an economics text book.
I think this is the idea behind blinkist.com
I used to get it as perk with my company and it wasn't an in depth analysis or anything but it covered the bases for such books in a way that felt useful
Wholeheartedly agree. And I think the problem has gotten worse for a few reasons. One is that if you’re interested in a subject, you likely follow it closely online, so reading a book-length treatment feels like learning a lot of stuff you already know. Two is that publishers try to find authors with social media audiences who likely already published all their good ideas for free and now have to dredge for additional material that’s usually less interesting.
When I was a child and teenager I loved science fiction. When I became an adult I shunned fiction as a waste of time and read only nonfiction books. Then I started to find that most nonfiction books could be summarized in a blog post or Wikipedia entry, regurgitated well established ideas, or spewed unfounded bullshit. I’ve since flipped my perspective again. I think good fiction is worth reading at book length while most nonfiction is better consumed in blog posts, articles, journal papers, or via a ChatGPT tutoring session.
I will highlight one consistent exception. I love every book I’ve read by Yuval Noah Harari.