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I thought when I was younger I couldn't read big, difficult books and (since it never occurred to me that there might be people smarter than me) I concluded that nobody could read big, difficult books. It was quite an epiphany when I actually really forced myself to get through one - and once I had pushed past that first barrier, it's gotten easier and easier to read really meaningful books.

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Most of these books are very poorly written. Smith's Wealth of Nations, as an example, is mostly very well-written and abysmally bad through the minority (Marx/Keynes probably the opposite). And meaning isn't really constant either, you read something and then come back to parts of it.

That's a good point - when I think of big, difficult books, I think of Knuth, or SICP (or the bible)... the author's examples are more along the lines of philosophy.

Keynes is known as being one of the best Economist writers of all time.

First, no he isn't. Second, the book we are talking about (again) is a textbook (this view isn't remotely controversial btw - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme...). Economic Consequences of Peace is very good, a lot of his stuff aimed at the general public (Persuasion/How to Pay for the War) is good...General Theory is not.

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