> There's something really important to understand when evaluating non-fiction books: nobody reads the later chapters

Asserted without evidence, and I very much doubt that it's true. I suspect it varies dramatically by subject matter, intended audience, book length, data density, and more. I have no evidence for any of that. Do you?

There was some statistics on capital in the 21st century by Picketty (maybe from Kindle readers?) that most owners of the books only read the first 10 pages or so. Am on mobile but should be easy to find.

Not necessarily saying this generalises to all non fiction books though