I think it's a common misconception and negative stereotype that things like Ulysses or Bebop are difficult. They're just an experience. Calling them difficult would be like calling Yosemite difficult (and lamenting that you don't fully get all of the rock formations, geological history, social history, flora, fauna...etc).
Anyone interested in tackling Ulysses in 2014 would benefit greatly from Frank Delaney's ongoing Re:Joyce podcast, in which he "unpacks" the book a paragraph or so at a time. He's been at it for three and a half years and is almost through "Calypso", the fourth chapter. That's an advantage for a first-time reader, as it gets you through the (deliberately ponderous and self-indulgent) "Proteus" stretch in Book I.
No, the "teach me about the world and myself" is not a criteria for being a good book, quite the opposite. It is not because a book teaches you something that it is good, it is because it is good that it teaches you something.
But why or how is it good, then? Well, usually because the writer is a good writer (but not always, some books have no writers, or are good despite their bad writers).
And a good writer is just someone who has a very itchy scar somewhere and would die if not using writing as a bloodletting.
that boils down to "good books are made of good writing, which is created by good writers, and good writers feel strongly about the things they write about"
It's simply a good book that gives a model/framework for self-improvement and how attraction between men and women work. It's still a model, it doesn't apply all the time, but it gives a certain insight and lets one see patterns whereas before, one sees only this behavior and that behavior and has problems to connect the dots. It is a model to unlearn (or at least: put into perspective) all the other models you learned about flirting in the past (mainly bullshit flirt guides, advice from girls, and Hollywood movies).
I think you're misguided here, the most difficult to handle truth has to be written in a book. Movies are not good at explaining real things because they focus on short snippets of life, and direct knowledge do not scale.
For example truth about something like cultural revolution in China or religious wars in Europe is likely best conveyed in books.
Maybe when a truth is so bad it cannot be written then it has to be sung, or hummed, and music would be the deepest and most reptilian way to keep memories.
Amen to that!
The other thing is that books don't have to teach you anything. it might just be to disconnect, open up your mind, see something in a different way. I would not necessarily call that "teaching". It can help with creativity tremendously! But then again, not every one can't handle creativity!
I agree with the first comment posted to your comment here that it would be helpful to readers here to provide examples of good books.
EDIT: I see below that you have your own top-level comment in which you mention a history of France you have read, and comment more generally that reading history is generally a good idea. I agree.
Non-fiction teaches you about the world.
Fiction teaches you about yourself.