[kenjackson]

there is next to no discussion of any part of the compiler that isn't parsing

Are you sure? There are 200 pages that cover lexing and parsing -- of a 950 page book.

If anything I'd argue that they've largely punted on parsing given that it's a lot less important than it used to be (which may explain why they didn't add GLR or packrat parsing) and focused on things that were considered more interesting issues in compilers.