Why did you find Chaos to be wonderful? I found many inaccuracies when I read it. Seemed more like a fluff piece designed to ride a popular wave about the topic at the time it came out.
Do you always eat only the finest meals, freshly prepared, with only the highest-quality meats and produce?
Sometimes an In-n-Out burger can be "wonderful".
I, too, enjoyed Chaos. Regardless of its inaccuracies -- wherever they are -- it presents the topic very well, introducing it without being dry or unreadable. It held my attention throughout the book, and I still remember specific parts of it. I wouldn't mind reading it again, either.
Books, like business, can have different markets and do different things well. I think what Gleick lacks in writing a textbook, he makes up for in approachability.
For me, perhaps it was my ignorance of the subject that both made me miss the book's inadequacies and made it seem wonderful to me. The concepts were new to me and were counter-intuitive in a mentally liberating way. It was also during a zeitgeist that produced books like The Tao of Physics.
