Someone asked me if I think my book-in-progress will really need to be 400 pages. He said most books he reads these days could stand to be shorter. My book probably won't be that long, but I know what he means. There are too many skimmable passages in certain books. For more on this, see B.R. Myer's excellent (and slim) tome: "A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Prose." Reading it is like a breath of fresh air.