As to whether today’s readers want a 500 page tomb:
I haven’t done a study, and I’m sure there are other examples. But the two books I can think of that drew large numbers of excellent students to do research with the authors are Douglas Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher, Bach” and Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind”. Both are surprisingly difficult to read.
As to whether today’s readers want a 500 page tomb:
I haven’t done a study, and I’m sure there are other examples. But the two books I can think of that drew large numbers of excellent students to do research with the authors are Douglas Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher, Bach” and Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind”. Both are surprisingly difficult to read.