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Perhaps not readable in a single evening, but this is probably the most accessible thesis I've ever read. If you don't care about the history or motivation behind Erlang, just skip to chapter 3.

However, I think the "why" of Erlang is pretty compelling in and of itself, especially if you're interested in extremely high-availability telecom hardware with an operational life measured in decades.

i'll second `tmm`'s comment. i skim-read Armstrong's Erlang thesis a while ago, it is very readable. if you invest a few hours one evening in reading it you can probably get a good overview of what is important, and which parts you might like to learn about next in more detail.

Erlang isn't hard to learn.

And Elixir is maybe easier. I believe the documentation is making strides, but last I checked there were some rather opaque references to Erlang OTP, and other things that aren't exactly obvious.

http://elixir-lang.org/