Taylor Branch is an eminent historian, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a certified expert on the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Branch’s trilogy “America in the King Years” has been required reading since the first volume rolled off the presses in 1988.

There’s just this one small problem with Branch’s acclaimed work, one that teachers often call to his attention: His books are long, weighing in at roughly 800 pages apiece.