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I haven't read the book you're referring to, so I can't comment directly. But in general, as @AminMohamedAjani says, this rule, like many rules, can be applied too slavishly.
Suppose in a story you want the reader to know that Jaime is the greatest swordsman in the country. You could say, "Jaime is the greatest swordsman in the country." Then the reader will immediately know. But how would you show this? You could write a scene where he wins a duel. But that just tells the reader that he is better than this one other swordsman, not that he is better than all other swordsmen. You would have to write a whole series of scenes of him winning duels, gradually building up to establishing that he is the greatest swordsmen.
If the whole point of the story is to trace how Jaime became the greatest swordsmen in the country, then just writing, "Jaime lived in such-and-such a place. He became the greatest swordsman in the country. The end." would make for a short and boring story. You would want to give all the details and build up the drama. But if this is a tiny piece of background to support what the story is really about -- maybe a minor contributing detail, or maybe an extremely important point, either way -- then just writing that one sentence tells the reader what he needs to know and you move on.
When you think about it, no one really applies the idea of "show, don't tell" 100%. Lots of stories mention "France" without giving the entire history of where the country came from and the origins of its name. Many stories begin at the interesting point of a person's life, without giving the details of where he was born and his childhood if these are not relevant to the story. You can write, "Bob was born to a poor family" without describing the entire process of conception, development in the womb, his parents' trip to the hospital, etc.
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