In praise of the hundred page idea

Nowadays, reading is mostly a meditative exercise for me. I'm not an "infovore" so I don't care about the velocity of ideas entering my head. Otherwise why not just go on Blinkist and read (or better yet listen to) book summaries. I also get the sense that the 300-page book that takes a week to read probably sinks into my brain better than a 100-pager; perhaps for the simple fact that the 300-pager takes longer to finish so I wrestle with the ideas for longer.

That being said, I do appreciate concisely written books. I wonder if our preference for shorter, more succinct writings is an inevitable outcome of the information age. So much data enter our eyeballs every day. Maybe we just have less tolerance for "fluff" compared to our ancestors. Older writings tend to be much "wordier". One example that comes to mind is the Einstein quote about simplicity from 1933: "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience". I prefer the condensed version: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler".

I think problem is not as much as wordier sentences as sentences devoid of meaning or the same stuff repeated too many times to fill a 300 page book.

I still prefer the original version of the classics to abridged versions.

I am disappointed. I thought this was about an individual elucidating their own ideas across one hundred pages in a rough manuscript.

As far as books go, give me the 300 pagers. Inundate me. I’m ready. It’s time.

The internet has betrayed my intellect. 300 pages. Inundate me. I want to read the 300 pager that expands upon the 100-page idea. Inundate me. I’m ready. I’ve had it with the screen. Unless it can point me to the next time.

Nothing else will satisfy me. It’s apparent. I thirst inundation. Bring me the tome.

100% agreed.

Maybe that urge (or need for the satisfaction) stems from having paid for a book or keeping a list of "read" books etc., But it's not worth the time and effort. If you find a book uninteresting, just close it and move on. If you linger on it later you can always return to it.

I find PhD dissertations to be a good fit for this. They are usually required to provide background on the field, an argument for why the covered research is state of the art and some actual example of original research. 80-200 pages depending on the field.