I have learned 85% or more of my go-to material from books, and 85% of that is from Royal Road and other books from that time period (Early to mid 1900's). That being said, I enjoy learning from books. I find a fun challenge in it. Do I think it's better than learning from a DVD? Probably not better, but at least as good. I agree that learning certain complicated moves from a video is better because there is that extra visual element there, but I've been reading Expert Card Technique on an e-reader and doing well with it. (This is difficult. The illustrations are all out of place.) I have had to modify the handling of the bottom deal some to fit my usual dealing position, but aside from a lack of practice, I can perform a bottom deal with no problem (O.K the lack of practice is a HUGE problem). On the other side of the coin, I learned the Diagonal Palm Shift from a video, and though I've only done it once in front of an audience, I have it ready if I ever need it.
One reason for learning from books, especially old books, is that the tricks in old books are great tricks, but some do need updating. For example, there is a cool little effect in a book that was published in 1910 called Magicians Tricks where you give 11 audience members 11 "different" face cards, and at the end they all realize they were given the same card, a card which you now have, and they all have different cards. The original handling on this effect is rather out of date, requiring a very simple gimmick, but with a little thought it was easy to eliminate the gimmick.
Perhaps my biggest reason for learning from books is that very few of the effects taught in books are revealed on the internet, or to be more specific, YouTube. I've had people (mostly those who try to be jerks) tell me they've seen something revealed on YouTube when doing more common effects. (Perhaps This 'n That is the most famous of those.) But whenever I perform something from a book, no one has any clue how it works (as it should be) and I can confidently say that they won't find the answer (which is nice).
Base on your single digit post count and the titles you mentioned, I'm guessing you're rather new to magic. (If I'm wrong, I'm sorry.) If this is the case, I recommend picking up one good book, Royal Road or Bobo's Coin Magic depending on what you're looking for, and one or two good DVDs that cover a wide range of sleights. (Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic is also a great book with a wide range of effects.) Then decide what works with your learning style.
Don't give up on books before actually trying to learn from them. Sit down with the book and necessary props and read the text. Then try to perform the effect with the text in front of you.
Don't forget that nothing beats a personal teacher! I've got a couple of people that I go to when I'm having trouble with an effect who can give me specific advice on what to do to correct whatever problems I'm having. This is how I learned The Pass.
