There are plenty of things you can learn yourself, where books give you a head start, or give you some insights that might have taken you a while, and a lot of pain, to figure out yourself.

That said, many business books tend to suffer from a problem of having a fairly simple concept at heart, and needing to pad that out to make it into something book length. Thus, my site Squeezed Books, which summarizes them. I'd also like to foster discussion of some of the books in question, as I think there is something to be gained from the discussion and dissection of the ideas presented.

I agree that many business books have a good ten to twenty page article trapped inside, with the book length writing required as packaging for sale. Some books, e.g. Innovator's Dilemma, offer a detailed review of examples that help to reinforce the basic concepts (as distinct from a collection of personal anecdotes and reminiscences).

> packaging for sale.

... and for future consulting work, in some cases:-)

Yeah, with the good ones, it's not like the rest of it is just "garbage", and I enjoy reading them, but I think for people who just want to know what the 'big idea' is, you don't need the extras.

There is no substitute for direct experience, but I find that a good book can give me a perspective or a paradigm to approach a situation that it may have taken me months or years to realize on my own.

I remember reading "Crossing the Chasm" for the first time and experiencing the feeling that the Chasm model organized a number of scattered perceptions and events from my prior decade of work experience and made sense of them.

Not every book is that good, but some are and if in a few hours of reading I can shave a year of experimenting and sense-making off of future efforts it's a good investment. I try to balance engagement with reflection, but good books combined with direct experience have enabled me to get better faster than I would have without reading them.

You get to learn from other people's mistakes without having to make them yourself.

hmm. interesting. i sort of disagree. experience is the best learning tool.

Civilization is possible because we redistribute our lessons learned from experience.

It's a choice... I prefer to read a book to learn, say, how to read dangerous chemicals warning labels, than to try every single one of them to see which ones are poisonous... Some experiences you don't want to have, which doesn't mean you cant learn from them, though.

Well, obviously. But with business specifically, I'm not sure if that applies. Say you pick up a book about how to write a business plan, set up a sales team, put together an effective marketing team, etc. It seems those are more of an art form than a science, and those abilities strengthen with experience. And if a mistake is that costly, then maybe you shouldn't be running a business to begin with?

I'm still not convinced. However, I am definitely in favor of reading.