Thanks for posting these, even though this portion of the site doesn't always get a lot of views.
I actually found this book to be somewhat impenetrable. Your comparison to reading an encyclopedia was apt. The walls of text made my eyes cross. I could only read one entry per sitting which made for extremely slow progress.
Luckily I'm one of those long-time players who already knew a lot of the content, but it's always nice to get a refresher/summary since 30 years of lore can be a beast.