I feel like the authors of many non-fiction books (e.g. business, self-help) are told that they must write a 320 page book, even if the core is, at most twenty, pages. I guess it needs to look plump on the shelf at the airport or something. Dale Carnegie got a lot across in a small number of pages. Today he’d have to do 320 pages or maybe even two books one on making friends and one influencing people. I wouldn’t mind paying for the book if there was a way to get the wheat without the chaff. I’ve seen various book summary apps but I’d rather get it straight from the author minus 300 pages of filler.

This is basically the conclusion of the "If Books Could Kill" podcast. After reviewing hundreds of bad nonfiction and self help books, excepting the ones that are deliberate scams through-and-through, they tend to be one good idea, or interesting observation the author had, that could fit in a blog post, but which had to be expanded to become an all-encompassing explanation for all of society and history and the universe in order to be publishable.

I was reading this book "Why Greatness Can't be Planned". Very interesting concept. From some startup SWE as well. Contains quite a few topics I wanted to read about but even for a "thin" 130 pages book, it is still needlessly padded; could have been half the pages and not miss anything.

Yeah. Like I’m already here bro, you don’t need to spend 50% of the book trying to convince me your ideas are worth considering