While talking about ionic bonds my book states :
Higher the value of electron gain enthalpy of the atom, greater the ease of formation of the anion from it, i.e., other atom should have high value of electron gain enthalpy.
Now I think it should say more negative than just higher (as negative enthalpy means release of energy and hence more stability). So what should it be? Why the chemistry books (I have to read) seem to always avoid the term magnitude(Is there some hidden assumption which are generally in the field of inorganic chemistry ?