Exactly. There usually is some stuff about the deeper, darker corners of a language in the type of book I pick.
I usually pick the authoritative book / advanced book.
Think "Programming PHP", "The joy of clojure", "The C Programming Language", etc.
I don't necessarily need to know all about performance optimization, the async model or non-html templating.
Reading a technical book cover to cover feels wasteful imo
And then never get to the third and fourth quarters because the practise you get from actually typing stuff is far more valuable? :)