My experience is that information can be compressed. Few paragraphs can be put one one simple infograph. Sometimes even several pages can be summarized into one or 2 paragraphs with a good analogy. One thing I understood about text books is that they are mostly just filler. I think the biggest offender is the commerce sector. I tried a book on marketing which was a friend was using while doing her management degree. I could summarize 10 pages into 1-2 pages. I read only about 70 pages. But I could summarize everything under 10 pages.

That's just my experience. I've always been pretty good at processing and compressing info.