Distilling famous thinkers

Should we approach famous thinkers by digesting distilled versions, or should we study them in the original?

I sided with  Tyler Cowen on this. Especially point 3 and 4.

3. The errors of top thinkers are often more interesting and instructive than their successes.  Distillers have a hard time capturing these errors and their fruitfulness.

4. We often read great thinkers not to learn what they understood but also to set our minds racing and to find interesting new questions.  Great thinkers are usually better at supplying this service than are their distillers.

Reading books is like a conversation with the authors. Surely I want to talk to those great thinkers. 

The lost Symbol

Just finished reading The Lost Symbol. If you want to kill some time, pick it up. If you want to spend time do some reading skip it. To quote others from www.goodreads.com

• "A collection of ideas is not a plot."
• formulaic
• he wrote a book designed to hit you with made-up facts to support a made-up philosophy. 
• His story-lines are choked with forced dialogue and contrived situations. His characters are one-dimensional caricatures who spend most of their time monologuing to explain to the dimmest of readers about what is happening and why. His formulaic and predictable plots are tiresome. 

Interestingly, New York Times did not hesitate to throw out all kinds comments that publisher would love to print on the jacket.