I find that I don't necessarily mind when a book repeats itself, and a good helping of anecdotes can help a point get across. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, "I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me." Trying to distill a book down to the minimum logically equivalent length is like eating the smallest possible portion of a supplement one time and then wondering why it doesn't do anything for you.