I strongly disagree. How on earth can a single person "extract from a book everything valuable it can offer" when some works of literature have been studied by scholars for hundreds of years and yet people still manage to come up with new ways of interpreting them?
Also, everyone has different goals in mind for when they read, ands sometimes these goals shift depending on the context. There's no reason to consider one type of reading more of an "art" than any other.
One factor to consider is the state of the YA genre c. 2000. Nowadays, kids ages 13-17 have TONS of books they can read that are targeted to their demographic, especially in the fantasy and paranormal category. But when Harry Potter was popular, young adult wasn't established as it is now. In short, there were fewer options.
I read it a couple of years ago, and I agree 100%. The sea-faring chapters aren't dry, boring textbook passages about how whaling works: they're insightful, satirical, heartfelt, and occasionally hilarious explorations into humanity.
Her by Harriet Lane. Although I don't own it, so it doesn't have a space on my shelf. It also has an abysmally low rating on Goodreads: 2.7.