A surprising number of non-fiction books these days are unbearable to read since I find the authors often use them as a thinly disguised autobiography masquerading as a book about a specific topic. I recently read an astrophysics book that I was excited to read based on the actual astrophysics topic, but it really was a book about the author's adventures and struggles through grad school and postgrad doing research in the topic of the book. I did not want to read about their "journey" - I didn't care before I started, and I cared even less after reading it. I find this leads to books feeling very fluffy and lacking the subject-matter depth that I wish for.

This isn't just a problem with non-fiction books. I find more often than not in long form journalism lately the writers seem to not be able to resist becoming characters in their own writing. I could have sworn at one point it was considered bad journalistic form to become part of the story versus reporting it. Apparently those days are gone.