Re: Pleasure reading
I wouldn't say that Paizo produces books that are only technical manuals. In addition to the Lost Omens world books, you have adventures & bestiaries. Even their more player-centric books (Guns and Gears, Dark Archive) have flavor text and interesting options to pour over. There are also nice libraries of books for Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, D&D (many editions), etc.
But what isn't fun to read (IME) - Old School Essentials. It's lean and mean and ... not fun to read? While I like having bullet-point descriptions in adventures, they're not great to read for fun.
A pamphlet rules set - also wouldn't be fun to read. There's not enough to dig into.
Dragonbane - well, that's a maybe? There doesn't seem to be much that's player-facing. You can't really dig into the mechanics. Your fighter with a 12 in Swords is the same as every other fighter with a 12 in Swords.
It's good for a simple game, but I doubt it would meet my needs for more than a few sessions.