Yes I know the standard answer - they want to sell books but hang on a minute.
Something that has always bothered me is that the average JW is incapable of explaining some of the most basic teachings without a WT book in hand.
After all those years, all that time, all those meetings, why is it so hard to understand and teach to someone else?
When you stop to think about it the early Christians weren't walking about with books and magazines. They didn't even carry a Bible cuz it wasn't even written yet. And very few people would have known how to read anyway.
So if the early Christains could explain these things why can't todays JWs?
I think it was Russell who said:
If the six volumes of Scripture studies are practically the Bible topically arranged, with Bible proof-texts given, we might not improperly nam e the volumes -- the Bible in an arranged form. That is to say, they are not merely comments on the Bible, but they are practically the Bible itself.
Such gall. And Russell was supposed to be humble??? Right. We knoa all the reasons they give but if no books were the norm in the first century then there is no need for them now.