Read: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter 📚

This was an extended magazine article, not a book. Entertaining, but with flimsy arguments.

@johnchandler for many nonfiction books my reaction is:

this should have been a blog post!

But this one really felt more like magazine article. (I suppose unsurprising, since that is the author’s writing background).

@toddgrotenhuis In some cases, I feel the value can be in sitting with a single idea fluffed out so that you really reflect on it...okay, in a few cases. I remember someone told me a trick which is to read the first and last (two? three?) chapters of a nonfiction book and that will have ALL the value. I've never tried nor checked it, but I can imagine it's true.

@ChrisJWilson I do agree that some need extended reflection…and some just feel padded.

@toddgrotenhuis I'd love to know how many books that feel padded were also cut down substantially during editing.

@ChrisJWilson and the reverse! Editor says “no, you gotta hit 200 pages!”

@toddgrotenhuis oh absolutely! I just suspect that even when the publisher says “turn this 1000 word blog post into a 200 page book”, the editor then cuts 100 pages! I heard Jason Fried say the reason they added the sketchnote illustrations in rework was because they had to hit a page number but didn’t want to just add fluff.