Distress Investing, from what I can tell so far, is written more from an academic perspective and I agree that it does slow the pace of the book down quite a bit. I like it so far and think it will be very beneficial.
Another book I just finished that you may be interested in is "You Can Be A Stock Market Genius." The book was written by Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Capital. It is very fast paced and touches on a number of investing ideas including distressed, special situation, arbitrage, Spinoffs and other restructuring efforts. It walks through some short case studies on each investing area taken from Greenblatt's investing successes and also some less than successful investments. You won't read it and instantly become a guru investor but it gives you just enough to leave you wanting to learn more and arms you with enough information to be ready to learn more.
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