can you learn how to plot from a book?

So I love to read books about writing - I love the idea of it, I love to buy them, I especially love to use a voucher I was given for free to order them online and wait excitedly for them to arrive (this last bit may have gone a bit far, I was like a newbie facebooker waiting for their second friend acceptance, checking the site every 15 minutes to track my delivery).  This month I bought two new books (yes online, how did you guess?) and I am almost finished the first, Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. 
I am really enjoying it.  And I am a little disappointed. 

To the disappointment first:
It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
I mean, I know this sounds stupid, but I was actually hoping it would reveal some secret short-cut to plotting out my novel.  How could it do that, when every novel has a unique plot? I don't know, if I knew I probably wouldn't need to read all these craft books.  But I am always looking out for the secret that I have somehow inadvertently missed,  that all other writers seem to know innately.  When I am logical about this, I understand that there is no secret, and that hard work, sweat and brain power is required to plot, but did I mention the hard work? I don't much like it, and so I prefer to hope for a secret along the way.  And now to the more promising part.

I am really enjoying it because:
it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
After I got over the initial disappointment of no secret, I realised that I knew this stuff that Bell was talking about.  He makes it sounds fresh, and has given me so many ideas about how to think about my plot and actually get down to doing some of that hard work.   It turns out that I know more craft than I think, and if I can just get enough self-confidence to try it out, maybe I will be able to plot.  And the brilliant thing about this book is that it doesn't suggest this stuff is easy (there is no hint of a secret, folks), but it doesn't suggest the task is insurmountable either.   I think it might be giving me some of that self-confidence.

So, excuse me, I am off to plot something.