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I liked this book, but it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more u
by larrywright 5y ago
I liked this book, but it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more useful information, but seem to serve as filler to make it book-length.
I read the book, and I read the article that the book was based on. I don’t recall learning anything from the book that I hadn’t already learned from the article.
- fluidcruft 5y agoWhat article was the book based on?
- larrywright 5y agohttp://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hellisothers 5y agoAgreed, I always wondered how those “Top 100 business books summarized!” books fit all that “content” into one book, then I read Checklist Manifesto…
- larrywright 5y agoIt’s certainly not the only book I’ve read like that in the last few years. It’s maddening - I value conciseness in a book, not length.
- dvtrn 5y agoI find myself wavering back and forth. Great fiction? Give me a big cinderblock of a book please. Full of world building and chapters dedicated to a single thread of thought going through a character's mind. Even to the point of sometimes when reading short fiction novels getting anxious towards the end, just knowing the ride is almost over. Non-fiction/fact-based/instructional books I flip-flop hard between enjoying a brief enchiridion on leadership and management styles one moment while cradling a tome of a physics text book the next. Such indecisiveness heh.
- FabHK 5y agoThe problem is that you can easily read a concise article, nod your head, understand it, and then entirely forget it. With a book, you get the main ideas presented multiple times, applied, examined, refined, put in context, etc. Now, you’ll also forget all that apparently extraneous stuff, but at least you’ll remember the main ideas.
- mikestew 5y agoWelcome to the genre of self-help books. I can't recall the last one I read that couldn't have just as easily been a long essay. "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article."
- tablespoon 5y ago> "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article." Though to be fair, sometimes those anecdotes are useful. I like examples, especially ones where an idea is applied to a situation that resembles my own. Also repetition is helpful to actually have a concept sink in. Also, what's filler for you may be the most relevant section for someone else (e.g. an anecdote that matches their situation but not yours, or necessary repetition). Also, I think software engineers, at least, have a bias to optimize for concision that can sometimes be counterproductive. For instance, I doubt a moderately long article that fully explains the core concept of cognitive behavior therapy would be as successful at actually changing the behavior of a depressed person than a more "redundant" book-length version. Maybe the short version would still work for some people, but that doesn't mean that's the best version for the majority of people.
- axpy906 5y agoI think we’ve lost the plot. The important thing is if you can recall and then use what’s in the book. If it takes repetition or length to do it, so be it. Some books even recommend you read them a second time for that purpose, like Getting Things Done and How To Win Friends and Influence People.
- bumby 5y agoI think for the layman, those anecdotes that strike on pathos are what sticks. I remember the stories about patients who avoid mishaps through checklists that caught the wrong limb being marked and their (understandably) irate reaction more than statistics.
- paxys 5y agoWhy is that a negative? If a book has interesting, engaging content why is it bad that it has 200 pages instead of 20?
- Jtsummers 5y agoBooks like this, IMO, are generally better when split into 2 pieces: 1. A "core" that describes the motivation for the ideas and then the ideas (as in, what makes a checklist, how comprehensive do they need to be, basic ideas on how to store and maintain them). 2. An expanded form, providing more detail on the motivation (issues that could have been mitigated if not eliminated with checklists, areas where checklists have succeeded, more specific practices around checklists that worked for some people, for the reader's consideration). This lets you skip the fluff if you've already been persuaded by going with (1), or if you need to be persuaded or want ideas on how to persuade others going with (2). A lot of useful material ends up suffering from self-obfuscation by only providing or too strongly pushing (2) and not (1). Since there is the New Yorker article, in this case both (1) and (2) exist (after a fashion, it's been a few years since I read that article so I'm not sure anymore what's in it but it is much briefer than the book).
- fredoliveira 5y agoBecause with less padding, people could spend the other 180 pages reading about 9 other ideas. Naturally, I know that's not so simple, but it is one of the key issues I have with books that say the same thing over and over again — lack of respect for the reader.
- colechristensen 5y agoBecause usually it doesn’t. It usually boring redundant content where you have to dig for the point. The same is true for many articles: what I needed was a picture and a caption, what I got was 2000 words which didn’t add much at all. Good writing of this kind makes its point right away and invites you to read more to expand on the point instead of holding the main idea hostage for most of the piece. Another failure of the attention economy.
- larrywright 5y agoIf he had only written the book, I likely wouldn't complain. But the fact that he accomplished the goal - convincing me that checklists were awesome - in a much shorter article, tells me that the rest of the book was unnecessary.
- gumby 5y agoThis is a plague on business books too, which are generally papers -- but who's going to buy a 10 page book from an airport bookshop? So they get padded on on autopilot. One of the few actually good business books (Crossing the chasm) is a single drawing!
- stormcode 5y agoagreed. i read this book on recommendation several years ago and felt it could be distilled in a blog post and i probably would have gotten more out of it.
- Rd6n6 5y agoAs somebody who also read the book, I recommend the book but totally agree. There are some interesting anecdotes in there but many are more interesting than persuasive. The book could have been half its length. I use checklists a lot and didn’t learn as much as I would have liked
- larrywright 5y agoIt's been a few years since I read it, but my recollection is that it presented the same information as the article, but added a bunch of additional studies and supporting arguments. Which didn't add any value at all.
- dllthomas 5y agoI disagree. The most interesting bits for me were the examples of application where things differed from my expectation. Construction checklists that included items of the form "Person A talks to person B" is the example that comes readily to mind. The worst thing about the book is all the self-congratulatory back patting, but I think that's comparably present in the article. I still often recommend the book.
- seanwilson 5y ago> it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more useful information, but seem to serve as filler to make it book-length. I've seen solo technical authors trying to sell concise ~100 page books and you often see comments like "that's too expensive, you can read it in a few hours and ebooks don't cost anything to produce!", ignoring the value of the information and how it's much more effort to be concise over verbose. I can see why there's a pressure to stretch text out to make it monitisable. Are there good examples of authors making money from very short books or articles? I'm amazed there still isn't a web microtransactions solution yet so e.g. blog readers can tip a small amount with no effort so concise + valuable information can be monitised and encouraged.
- zrail 5y agoDepends on what you mean by "money". My book Mastering Modern Payments made ~$80k in its useful lifetime and it was about 100 pages.
- seanwilson 5y agoThat's awesome, can I ask what did you do for marketing before launch and after? So I know Refactoring UI did ridiculously well (https://twitter.com/adamwathan/status/1289702466754211842 https://twitter.com/adamwathan/status/1289702466754211842) for example while being concise.
- totoglazer 5y agoMarie Kondo and the magic of tidying up. It’s padded, but even with padding basically magazine article length.
- WalterBright 5y agoHave you ever noticed that most books seem to be the same size? Book publishers manage this by: 1. adjusting the paper thickness 2. adjusting the font size 3. adjusting the line spacing 4. adjusting the margins 5. adding blank pages The actual amount of text in a book varies dramatically.
- MadeThisToReply 5y agoHaving read the book, I fully agree. Atul Gawande is obviously a smart guy, and the book is very readable, but I gained almost nothing from reading it that I couldn't have gained by just reading the LW article linked in the OP. Not recommended.