The average price of a book is about 15 to 20 bucks. Even if it is mostly covered in other books there will probably be a tid-bit not covered in the others, say 25% of the book will be unique.
Lets figure the book in question is $20 (any book for that matter), and a minimal amount of original content, going with 25% for easy numbers. So, it will take you about an hour to find the content, and another 2-4 hours to digest the info. Lets use the minimal of 2hrs to digest the information. Lest also think even more extreme and say you never open the book again.
Granted this particular situation has almost never happened to me. I buy lots of books. Lots. I own hundreds. Probably circulated over a couple thousand in my home library on different professions and hobbies through the years. (Bow building, survival, software engineering, pneumatic and hydraulic systems, various religion books, welding, machining, rock climbing, mountaineering, etc.. You get the point.)
Lets crunch the numbers:
Book $20
Relavant info ratio 25%
Time spent on info 2 hours
You have just spent $10/per hour on a book. The info was oversold to you by a factor of 4. If it would have taken you 8 hrs to complete the book (assuming no repeated content, and a very small book), at 100% efficiency you would have spent $2.50 per hour reading the book.
Even with the gross loss in efficiency (and extremely overestimation of numbers) I would still say that the book is a great deal.
- If it provides you with one new tid-bit of info that will save you 15 minutes of brew time, you will have the book paid for in 8 batches. After that you are making money.
- If you can get a 24 pack of great beer because of the book, it's probably paid for. After that you are making money.
Figure a movie will cost you about 20 bucks to go see after figuring in travel expenses and the like (assuming a matinée movie with SWMBO). You will have the book forever, and when you are done can probably sell it for about half what you paid for it anyway. (I regularly sell at half priced books -
http://www.hpb.com/stores/ ).
I just realized I wrote a chapter on book buying justification. Maybe I have some unresolved issues with buying books, I have to justify it to myself...
On the other hand; Just about everything this day and age is google'able. Cheers!
