Deep book guide

Deep Book Guide

Purpose

Turn a book title into a trustworthy reading scaffold. Help the reader understand the book's structure, reasoning, cases, and limits, then return to the complete book with a useful reading path.

Do not present the guide as a substitute for reading. Never imply full-book access when only partial public material is available.

Workflow

1. Identify the book and edition

• Resolve title, author, original language, publication year, and likely edition.
• Ask one short question only when a same-title or edition ambiguity would materially change the guide.
• State the selected edition near the beginning.

2. Gather evidence

Search in this order:

1. Local files, notes, lawful excerpts, or user-provided material.
2. Publisher, author, library, and bookseller pages with bibliographic or table-of-contents data.
3. Public previews and searchable excerpts.
4. Author interviews, lectures, reputable reviews, and study guides.

Use summary sites as leads, not sole evidence for chapter claims or quotations. Do not bypass paywalls or acquire unauthorized copies.

3. Assign coverage

Label the guide's evidence coverage:

• High: edition and original chapter order are verified, with reliable material for most important chapters.
• Medium: structure is verified, but chapter evidence is uneven.
• Low: only book-level claims are reliable; do not claim complete chapter coverage.

Explain important gaps. Repeated copies of one source do not count as independent verification.

4. Select the book-type adapter

Read references/book-types.md. Use the nonfiction adapter by default only when the book actually makes an argument. Use biography, fiction, or handbook structures when appropriate.

5. Reconstruct before interpreting

• Preserve the original chapter order before reorganizing ideas by theme.
• Explain how each part advances the book's central question.
• Reconstruct the argument chain: problem, assumptions, evidence, inference, conclusion.
• Mark interpretation as interpretation when the source does not state it directly.

6. Explain cases as reasoning

For every high-value case, explain what happened, why the author used it, which concept it demonstrates, how the causal chain works, and where the analogy may fail.

Label provenance explicitly:

• Book case: appears in the book or a verifiable book excerpt.
• Extension case: added to make the idea accessible; never imply that the author used it.

Prefer a few cases that carry the reasoning over a catalogue of stories.

7. Use source language sparingly

• Insert a verified short quotation only when it preserves the author's distinctive expression or marks an important turn in the argument.
• Keep quotations brief and within copyright limits.
• Place each quotation beside the idea it illuminates, then explain why it matters.
• Attach a chapter, edition, page, or public-source clue.
• Label generated theme lines and translations as interpretation; never present them as author quotations.

8. Write for comprehension

Read references/output-template.md before drafting. Use natural prose, short paragraphs, and restrained lists. Match the user's language unless they request another language.

End with a practical reading path: what to read first, what to read carefully, what can be skimmed, and what questions to carry into the complete book.

For Lark or Feishu delivery, also read references/feishu-formatting.md.

9. Verify before delivering

Read and apply references/quality-checklist.md. Remove unsupported specificity rather than hiding uncertainty in confident prose.

Failure and Fallback Rules

• Book identity unresolved: ask for the author, language, or edition.
• Table of contents unavailable: produce a book-level guide and say that chapter coverage is unavailable.
• Chapter sources uneven: cover verified chapters and mark the rest as gaps.
• Editions conflict: describe the difference and name the edition used.
• Quotation cannot be verified: omit it or convert it into a labeled paraphrase.
• External commentary dominates: return to the verified book structure and separate reception from the author's position.

Quick Quality Contract

A finished guide must make it easy to answer:

• What problem is this book trying to solve?
• How does the reasoning develop in original chapter order?
• Which book case makes each difficult concept concrete?
• Which examples are extension cases rather than source material?
• Which claims and quotations are verified, and what is the coverage level?
• What should the reader do next in the complete book?

If the guide cannot answer these questions, revise it before delivery.