[aaachilless]

I think we’re talking about two different ideas. It seems like you’re talking about a publishing problem, not a problem with books qua books. That said, I haven’t ran into this other problem either. If I thought an author was padding a book just to make a page threshold, I’d never read that author again.

[marklgr]

Ah, maybe we're talking of different things indeed. As for the padding, in my experience it happens very often, not with random sentences of course, but with unnecessary chapters, paraphrasing, too many anecdotes etc. If you think about it, it's not that surprising: why every idea worth a book should need 250+ pages to discuss? What about the many blog posts or TED talks artificially turned into a book, for money and prestige?