[jjjjj55555]

It looks like a lot of these are self-help or other fluffy books.

It's funny because whenever I read these books I feel like someone just took a bunch of bullet points and then added anecdotes and fluff to make it fill a book. Herd you're reversing the process.

[jbm]

From the other extreme, I had recently asked GPT to do something similar with the text of Botchan (a famous literary work in Japan).

The bullet points it gave were were somewhat accurate at points, although I would say that the timeline and relationships wrong at some points. His childhood caretaker became a "woman he had a relationship with" later on, which was a complete mischaracterization. I think the regular version, sans the book text, might be more accurate (as it is probably based on Wikipedia / etc..)

[nunez]

If you're into savage debunking of junk self-help books, check out Michael Hobbs and Peter Shamshiri's podcast _If Books Could Kill_. Their obliteration of _Rich Dad, Poor Dad_ (the first book highlighted on this site) is one of their best episodes.

[TrailMixRaisin]

This is my feeling two. Many times the author tries to say the same thing 20 different times to fill a book. Many ot those books could have been a great 30 minute presentation.

[runjake]

  > Many times the author tries to say the same thing 20 different times to fill a book. Many of those books could have been a great 30 minute presentation.

This is indeed how many, many of these books started -- as a $x minute presentation or an article.

I always try to find the source presentation or article and consume that before reading a book. It has served me well. You get the core ideas, concisely, without the fluff.