Business Book Liposuction

This summer, Orion Books will publish condensed versions of literary classics including “Moby Dick,” “David Copperfield,” “Anna Karenina,” and "Vanity Fair." The series publisher, Malcolm Edwards, contends that “… many readers think of the classics as long, slow, and ... boring” and therefore, some of these books will be shortened by as much as 40%.

Literary purists aren’t too pleased that these classics are being given the literary liposuction treatment with the editing out of sub-plots and intricacies. While others are pleased that they will now be able to find the time needed to read lengthy classics without succumbing to riffling through a Cliff’s Notes version.

Hmm ... why stop at literary classics? Why not also include business books in the mix? After all, many worthwhile business books suffer from being too long and too unfocused that a little liposuction would be helpful. Much of Peter Drucker’s classic writings have been condensed and reconstituted in a variety of re-issues. Some of Tom Peters’ back catalog (pre-1996 especially) is sure to benefit from being re-issued in compact edition form. (Not sure a compact edition of THE STRATEGY PARADOX would work though.)

(NOTE: Executive Summaries does a nice job of condensing the key themes of business books into handy 8-page pamphlets. However, those summaries are almost too topline to make a meaningful difference in a businessperson’s world.)

My short list of classic business books I’d like to see in a trimmed-down version include: " In Search of Excellence," "The Rise and Fall of the Creative Class," and "Building Strong Brands."

What about you? Which business books would you want to read in trimmed-down version form?

Comments

[John Dawson]

"Simply Better" doesn't exactly need condensing but many chapters removing. Likewise "The Earth is Flat" doesn't add much after about 60 pages.

[David J. Miller]

Notice Godin's new book -- the Dip -- it is supershort. around 50 or 50 pages and smaller in terms of height than most biz books.... still charging around 15 or 16 bucks for it.With blogs, youtube, etc... the question of the demise of books is clearly on the minds of those promoting condensed classics.

[Connie Reece]

"Literary liposuction" -- now there's something I wish I had written. :-)

I'm one of those purists who will only listen to unabridged audio books, although I confess to having grown up on Reader's Digest Condensed Books. But that applies primarily to fiction.

When it comes to business books, I'm trying to read The Rise and Fall of the Creative Class right now, but the main obstacle is the size of the print, not the length. Publishers: please give us bifocal users a break!

I would like to revisit In Search of Excellence in abridged form. And I think something like Executive Summaries is really only valuable to point me in the direction of books I actually want to read; but for that purpose I now use Amazon.

[Justin Kownacki]

Why stop at books? I have a feeling condensed versions of films would work well too. Then again, most films these days are completely summarized in their 30 second trailer -- perhaps that's the blueprint for future films: no film, just a trailer...

[Stephen Dann]

How big does the book have to be to qualify for liposuction? (and how small is the end product looking like to qualify as liposucted?)

The author side of me senses a challenge.

[Jay Ehret]

Liposuction would be especially helpful with the modern crop of obese business books, Tribal Knowledge being the exception :-). The trend seems to be to take an idea good enough for a one hour speech and stretch it into a 300 page book.

[Valeria Maltoni]

"The World is Flat" would be one to put on a diet. Any other business book that doesn't do a good use of story, diet. The repetitive ones, diet. I agree with Connie on small print, who's your audience?

And about the Creative Class, I was at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia last night where Richard Florida spoke at the inauguration of the Center for The Creative Economy. Will blog about it Sunday -- time to digest my small, diet-like, meals.

[Glenn]

Execution by Ram Charon and Larry Bossidy.

BTW, back in the 50's and 60's, Classics Illustrated produced comic books of the classics. I'm sure the literary lions hated them too. When I had to accompany my mom to the HEB, she'd park me by the magazine rack where I'd read them because HEB wouldn't carry Superman, Spidey, or my other preferred choices. So I read those.

[Matt Ellsworth]

I am slowly chunking my way through "Made to Stick" and I would like to say that they have done a great job following their own rules for sticky ideas.

I can't really remember the last business book that bored me to death, because I probably didn't finish it.

[David Welton]

Hi,

I'm not quite ready to announce it widely, but a comment or two here and there can't hurt, for those interested in the subject. I think Phillip Greenspun's quote best sums up my opinion of a lot of business books:

"This book illustrates a fault in the publishing industry. If you have a 50-page idea it is too long for a magazine. But it is too short for a book. So if you wanted to get it distributed before the Web came along, you had to drop in words until you reached 200 pages."

That doesn't mean the idea is fluff, or the author isn't bright, but a lot of these books can be summed up rather quickly, without too much effort.

Infact, I have created a web site to do this in an open, collaborative way (think wikipedia):

http://www.squeezedbooks.com

Furthermore, my hope is to foster a community interested in *discussing* these books, something that the current biz book summary sites don't do at all.