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.
It's always surprising how many HN readers seem to read only non-fiction, sometimes only self-help style books about business and startups. Some are even proud of that.
I’m equally surprised how many people read extremely low quality pop fiction nowadays. Especially those romantic/erotic books. Those were the kind of book you’d be laughed at for reading back in the day.
Reading non-fiction about some current topic isn’t that bad in comparison.
I'm kinda dumping my thoughts in this reply to a bunch of the parent/sibling comments - but to me non-fiction isn't the problem, it's specifically the self-help genre that by and large seems incredibly intellectually shallow, e.g. the fast food of non-fiction.
This became me, somewhere along the last 5-10 years. Not the being proud of it part, just the realization that my breadth of book reading has taken a nosedive. Unfortunately I haven’t read a single book of any kind in the last few years. Having kids didn’t help, but I am planning to change that finally.
great ones like berserk, 5cmps, cowboy bebop, your name are rare. Good ones are plenty. In fact, considering, how shitty western writers have become, even the trash manga/manwha are infinitely better.
Most books are useless and boring. Some books have good concept but drags things needlessly.
I still read a good amount everyday but not a 300 page book where the core content is 2 page.
However, a great book is still interesting and being "completely engrossed" is still possible.
It is the book content quality (compared to other things in society) that dropped.