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As a bit of a meta conversation, I'm a bit torn over book summaries as articles. I've suffered through many books that had a very good message, but should have
by mat_epice 3y ago
As a bit of a meta conversation, I'm a bit torn over book summaries as articles.
I've suffered through many books that had a very good message, but should have been 20% as long as they were. Much repetition in every possible spot, just to end up with a book of a respectable length that people don't feel bad spending $15 on. Comprehensive summaries are a great way to get around that.
On the other hand, these summaries are (by definition) derivative works that serve almost entirely as just distillations of the book. There's some opinion rolled in, but the description of the source material goes far beyond a book review to the point that it could be seen as a time- and money-saving replacement. If I were an author, I wouldn't be happy that my book was interpreted by a random third party, let alone that many folks will assume they got the value from the work and won't buy it.
- pawelduda 3y agoMessage is deeper and has stronger meaning or impact when you spend more time dissecting it. Think character development in a movie vs TV series.
- askiiart 3y agoI totally understand that, but with nonfiction and self-help books like this, you don't really need as much repetition in my opinion. Repetition of the same point tends not to help as much here as it does in fiction. For example, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear a couple months ago. It had a ton of repetition, and in my opinion it was a huge simplification of "complex nuanced human behavior" (that point's discussed elsewhere im the thread). I would hold the book in higher regard if it had repeated itself less, which didn't help much, and instead expanded on its ideas by adding more nuance instead. If this was a summary of a fiction book, I'd agree, but in this context I don't agree with your argument.