Isn't a horrible book better for you in the same way that walking uphill is better for you than driving uphill? I feel like your analogy would be more akin to

Isn't a horrible book better for you in the same way that walking uphill is better for you than driving uphill? I feel like your analogy would be more akin to learning theorems by deriving them from first principles as opposed to taking them as gospel. It's the material that should be hard, not gleaning information out of the book.