The movie is very good yet deeply disturbing.

Like a school history book. Dry.

I'm sure the movie captures the essence better

History book. It has a narrow focus with a decided beginning, middle and end to what it's choosing to tell. It reads like literary fiction in style.

in the characters lives. That is the power of the acting and the length. You get the horror of what is going on in the long term that way. And the love story that is the prism through which all is seen. Not your typical movie. It was a informative and horrifying experience. You get the metaphor of indigenous people living through trust and betrayal in all their relations with white people.

I just downloaded a sample and read through the first few chapters. Seems like a standard nonfic work to me, and seemed to flow well and move along at a decent pace, in my estimation.

I can point you to some dry history books, since I had to read my share of them for the upper level history component at uni. I still get a nervous tic when I think of Revolution and History by Arif Dirlik. It's a history of the rise of Marxism in China pre-Mao. Bloody hell, what a slog of a book that was!

The Grann is a barn-burner in comparison to books like that.

Well-written, researched, and gripping. I was not all surprised to hear the movie rights had been picked up.

Each to their own, I guess!