Chris Anderson has written a book that took an interesting idea and then beat the heck out of it. That said, there was enough incremental information over the original Wired article about the book to make it worth a read.
I rather enjoyed the portion of the book devoted to the relatively recent historical events that shaped the tail the way we know it. It tied nicely to understanding the so-called ‘hybrid retailers’ which don’t actually have inventory but are more like retail aggregators.