If after reading an entire book you haven’t already internalized its main thesis, it’s probably not a very valuable thesis. But reducing a book down to a singl

If after reading an entire book you haven’t already internalized its main thesis, it’s probably not a very valuable thesis. But reducing a book down to a single thesis minimizes the takeaway value of the book, surely? Take a book like Gödel Escher Bach. Sure, that book has a thesis. But the value of having read that book is not captured in ‘strange loops are all it takes to create beauty, complexity and consciousness’ - all the different ideas that underpin that thesis are what makes it valuable. That book lives as a set of new connections and pathways between ideas in my brain. And I read it over 20 years ago.