@ahh_boy - copying this from a forum thread; hopefully it answers your question.
The short version is, we did not treat this book like an encyclopedia, because everyone can easily get information on the internet. We included what we considered the essential data, and left out a bunch of statistics and minutiae that are better presented on the internet than in a book. We added tons of art, photographs, new reviews, and features.

tl;dr version:

@23piper said:

Is it a book? Photo album? Set list document? I'm trying to figure out what I would get out of it beyond what I get out of dot net.

Thoughts?

Great question.
Why on earth would anyone in 2016 want a book, right?

We played with that question and even did surveys, and we started this project (this 2nd ascent) asking that question: What can we provide in a book, when all the data and info is accessible with a couple clicks or taps (see what i did there)?

So this thing was designed from the ground up to be a physical "thing" - to look and feel beautiful. To peruse front-to-back, or pick a random spot, or to target a particular show, song, or event that you are curious about. It's a lot of different things in one. It has complete setlists, complete original song histories, selected cover song histories, song index, but I think that's about it in terms of statistical minutiae. After that is narrative and art to tell the story.

The layout and design are amazing. Not even comparable to the first two editions. Full color, color coded through features and eras and chapters. Its a joy to look at and read, not like the prior phone book/encyclopedia hybrids.

There is some great legacy content from the site, but also over 100+ new show reviews and stories, some outstanding features, a bunch of outstanding writing that has never been seen before. Setlists and show notes slightly edited, reformatted, trimmed. Song histories all cleaned up.

And then the original artwork - the series seriously gives me chills. And a metric buttlload of amazing photography that has never been published before. This will be the best collection of phish-related photography ever published in one spot.

All that, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff.

Bottom line is, we recognized that exact question, and did our best to address it.
This is not just a great phish book, or rock and roll book. It's an outstanding book. Period.