If you're going to be that critical of something, you should probably offer some reasons. Personally, I've read the book and remember it as being a decent history if not a particular page turner.
The pages dragged on and on, it could have been half the length it was and lost nothing of value. I find the topic interesting and was looking forward to reading this book based on other HN comments, but it was not written in a way that I find engaging at all.
Edit: the intention of my comment is to prevent another user like myself from being disappointed if they have better things to read. Reading is a time-consuming process, I'm rather annoyed when I bother to read a book that leaves me feeling like I've wasted a significant amount of time with little to show for it.
Based on another comment here, I'd recommend giving Casting the Net a read instead.
Non-fiction writing will often repeat the same thing in different ways. Different phrasings resonate with different readers. The goal of the nonfiction writer is communication, not entertainment, and he will try to illuminate his subject from different angles to reach the widest audience.
Some of it is economics. You can't really publish a standard book that's less than 200-300 pages. It's also the case that a lot of "filler" does add to the readability and general intellectual heft of a book; the reader's digest form really wouldn't have as big an impact.
I would many times pay extra for a shorter book on a subject. Maybe some books could be padded with a few hundred blank pages so that it would be the acceptable thickness for publishing?
