I've thought about this for awhile, and I think it's reasonable to read some books in their entirety to better understand certain things (although I will agree that some books are just fluff and can be condensed into a blog post).
Take for instance the Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. We get it, make checklists because they're good for making sure you don't miss stuff. Got it. But in reading the stories and personal anecdotes, we get a felt sense for why and how we should implement a system of checklists to offload cognitive load so that we can focus on things that require more discursive thinking.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can tell someone to do something, but you may have a better shot at getting them to remember (edit: understand deeply) if you tell them a story. Humans may just be like that.
Not saying these authors aren't trying to hit publisher mandated word counts or whatever, but it may not always be that.
Yeah I do agree. I think some books are just obviously padded out, but others have legitimate repetition of the message, which does have value, eg. your example (great book!)
Take for instance the Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. We get it, make checklists because they're good for making sure you don't miss stuff. Got it. But in reading the stories and personal anecdotes, we get a felt sense for why and how we should implement a system of checklists to offload cognitive load so that we can focus on things that require more discursive thinking.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can tell someone to do something, but you may have a better shot at getting them to remember (edit: understand deeply) if you tell them a story. Humans may just be like that.
Not saying these authors aren't trying to hit publisher mandated word counts or whatever, but it may not always be that.