Announcing: The Praxis Anti-Book Club

Books are the worst.

Seriously. Think about it.

Most books have one good idea wrapped in layers and layers of fluff. Like one of those giant gift boxes you keep opening with smaller and smaller boxes inside, only to find a keychain.

Books are static. By the time they hit store shelves, they’re already out of date. If by some miracle the book ever gets updated, you have to buy it again.

Books trap information. Even when you do all the work of finding the few morsels of insight, there’s a lot of friction to getting it out.

Books are wasteful. They traditionally had to be a certain size to justify the costs of publishing, printing, shipping, and retailing. We continue printing them at the standard length, which is a terrible waste of paper, ink, and energy. Even when it’s an ebook, conforming to this standard size wastes the time and attention of both the people producing them and reading them.

I love ideas, but I hate books. I can no longer justify the time to read books in the vague hope I’ll find something valuable, AND remember it for future use.

What if there was a way to get the ideas from books, without having to read them?

This article has moved to the new Praxis blog. Sign up here for a free 30-day trial, or subscribe to the newsletter to receive notifications of free articles. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube.