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📖 Biographies & Memoirs

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Educated by Tara Westover
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman
• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
• Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

💼 Business & Money

• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley
• The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

🏋️ Health, Fitness & Dieting

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• How Not to Die by Michael Greger
• The Whole30 by Melissa Hartwig Urban
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
• The Plant Paradox by Dr. Steven R. Gundry
• The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung
• Wheat Belly by William Davis
• Grain Brain by David Perlmutter
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
• 1491 by Charles C. Mann
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
• The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
• A World Undone by G.J. Meyer
• The Second World War by Antony Beevor

🌐 Politics & Social Sciences

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
• Evicted by Matthew Desmond
• The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
• Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
• The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
• The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek
• Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky

🔬 Science & Math

• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Chaos by James Gleick
• The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
• The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

💡 Self-Help

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
• Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

🙏 Spirituality

• The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
• The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
• The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
• Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch

⛹️ Sports & Outdoors

• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Greatest: Muhammad Ali by Walter Dean Myers
• Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis
• Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
• The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb

👔 Management & Leadership

• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell
• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brené Brown
• The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently by Tony Dungy
• Minority Leader: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
• Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't by Jim Collins
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

🎨 Hobbies & Crafts

• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
• The Knitter's Book of Knowledge by Debbie Bliss
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
• A Well-Crafted Home: Inspiration and 60 Projects for Personalizing Your Space by Janet Crowther
• The Flower Chef: A Modern Guide to Do-It-Yourself Floral Arrangements by Carly Cylinder
• The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet by Margaret Hubert
• The Modern Natural Dyer: A Comprehensive Guide to Dyeing Silk, Wool, Linen, and Cotton at Home by Kristine Vejar
• Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It by Adam Savage
• Handmade Houseplants: Remarkably Realistic Plants You Can Make with Paper by Corrie Beth Hogg
• Simple Sewing: 30 Fast and Easy Projects for Beginners by Katie Lewis

🎓 Education

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
• Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel
• The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
• Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
• How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan A. Ambrose and others
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
• The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. Palmer
• Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov

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Productivity Tools

8 Best Book Summary Apps in 2024 (Free & Paid)

By  Alex  · Updated Mar 2, 2024

If you're like most people, you probably have a long list of books you want to read but never seem to find the time for.

That's why book summary apps are so popular! These apps allow you to read summaries of books so that you can get the information you need in a fraction of the time.

In this blog post, we will discuss the best book summary apps in 2024.

B est Book Summary Apps

• getAbstract

How to Choose

There are a lot of different book summary apps and websites, so how do you choose the right one for you? The best way to decide is to think about what features are important to you. Here are some things we considered:

• How much does it cost?
• How many book summaries does it have?
• Which summary formats are available?
• On which devices are the summaries available?

1. Blinkist

• Available on : Web, iPhone, Android, Alexa
• Pricing : $16/month (or $8.33/month billed annually)
• User Ratings
• iPhone : 4.8 ★ (99.4K+ ratings)
• Android : 4.7 ★ (81.5K+ ratings)
• Extra features : Audio summaries, podcast summaries

Our Take: Blinkist is the app to beat when it comes to book summaries. They have a large catalog of books, competitive pricing, high user ratings, and all the important features we expect to see in a book summary app.

2. Shortform

• Available on : Web, iPhone, Android
• Price : $24/month (or $16.42/month billed annually)
• iPhone : 4.4 ★ (200+ ratings)
• Android : 3.6 ★ (300+ ratings)
• Advanced features : Related insights, exercises

Our Take: What we love about Shortform? The app goes beyond simple book summaries and relates to ideas to those from other books. It also makes the content actionable with targeted exercises.

3. getAbstract

• Price : $29.90/month (or $25/month billed annually)
• Android : 4.1 ★ (2.1K+ ratings)
• Advanced features : Article and video summaries

Our Take: getAbstract boasts one of the largest library of summarized books. However, the app is not as engaging and interactive as others on this list.

4. StoryShots

• Price : Free plan available (or $2.99/month for premium plan)
• iPhone : 4.7 ★ (1.1K+ ratings)
• Android : 4.4 ★ (5.5K+ ratings)
• Advanced features : Animations

Our Take: With its generous free plan and cheap premium plan, StoryShots is a great app for budget-conscious readers.

5. Deepstash

• Available on : iPhone, Android
• Price : Free plan available (or $12.99/month for pro plan)
• iPhone : 4.8 ★ (2.1K+ ratings)
• Android : 4.5 ★ (74.3K+ ratings)
• Advanced features : Article and podcast summaries

Our Take: We like Deepstash’s approach of focusing on ideas rather than books and fully recommend checking out their free plan.

• Price : $9.15/month (billed annually)
• iPhone : 4.8 ★ (5.2K+ ratings)
• Android : 4.1 ★ (53.2K+ ratings)
• Advanced features : Audio summaries

Our Take: 12min is an overall solid book summary app. However, it’s inferior to Blinkist at a similar price point and does not come with any of the unique features of other apps on this list. We recommend checking out these other apps first.

• Available on : iPhone
• Pricing : $15.99/month (or $8.33/month billed annually)
• User Ratings: 4.8 ★ (17.5K+ ratings) for iPhone
• Extra features : Daily quiz, visualizations

Our Take: Lucid’s unique selling point are its easy to understand visualizations. The app is a joy to use and we definitely recommend checking it out if you are a visual learner.

• Pricing : $7.49/month (billed annually)
• iPhone : 4.7 ★ (68.9K+ ratings)
• Android : 4.4 ★ (41.5K+ ratings)
• Extra features : Video explainers, spaced repetition

Our Take: By offering progress tracking and spaced repetition the Headway app focuses on helping you learn and retain the knowledge gained from its book summaries.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are book summary apps?

Book summary apps are mobile and web applications that provide concise summaries of books, allowing users to get the essence of a book's content in a much shorter time. They're ideal for those with busy schedules who still want to consume book content.

Are there free book summary apps available?

Yes, several book summary apps offer free plans or trials. StoryShots and Deepstash are great examples, with both offering generous free options alongside premium plans for users looking for more features.

Can I listen to book summaries instead of reading them?

Absolutely! Apps like Blinkist and 12min offer audio summaries, making it convenient to consume book content on the go, whether you're driving, exercising, or just relaxing.

Which book summary app is recommended for visual learners?

Lucid is highly recommended for visual learners. It offers unique visualizations along with its summaries, which can help users better understand and retain the information presented.

Is there a book summary app that helps with knowledge retention?

Headway is designed to help with learning and retaining knowledge. It features spaced repetition and video explainers, tools that enhance understanding and memory retention of the book summaries.

All Book Summary Apps

Get Smarter Faster: Bite-sized Book Summaries for Busy Minds.

Nothing beats reading a great book cover to cover. But have you ever left one unfinished? Instead, learn the key insights of bestselling business and personal development books in minutes, instead of hours or never. Read, listen or watch summaries anywhere anytime. Use StoryShots to get through your stack of unfinished books, save time and discover new exciting reads.

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StoryShots is the world’s only microlearning app with thousands of free book summaries in text, audio and animated formats. It’s featured worldwide as one of the best educational apps and called “very clever” by Steven Pinker, Bill Gates’ favorite author. Download StoryShots to get the key insights of bestselling nonfiction books today.

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5 Blinkist Alternatives for Free Book Summaries You May Not Have Known

Go after more knowledge in less time with free book summaries in text, audio, video, and animations.

Haven't read a book but still want to look like you read it? Get a free book summary through these apps, podcasts, and YouTube channels.

Not everyone wants to develop a habit of reading regularly . But that doesn't mean you need to miss out on the great content in books. From entrepreneurship and marketing to classic novels and fiction, these services offer free book summaries, whether in text, audio, video, or animations.

1. QuickRead (Web, Android, iOS): Best Free Alternative to Blinkist

QuickRead is the best free alternative to Blinkist, one of the must-have apps for book lovers . It's a treasure trove of free book summaries available to listen to on an app or online, or read as text. And they're all done by humans, not AI.

As you'd expect, the books at QuickRead are the non-fictional variety, including categories like entrepreneurship, history, economics, marketing, spirituality, philosophy, etc. Considering it's all free, it hosts a shockingly large collection of popular books in these genres from reputed authors. Each book is summarized by one person and narrated by another.

The mobile apps allow you to download books for offline listening if you pay for the premium account. But well, the website offers free MP3 downloads of each book (as well as the text in a PDF file). It makes little sense to pay for the premium plan unless you want to support the developers and content team.

You can also subscribe to the QuickRead podcast to get a new book daily in your favorite podcast player.

Download: QuickRead for Android | iOS (Free)

2. Best Book Bits (Web): Free Video, Audio, and Text Summaries of Books

While AI summarizers are great, there's nothing better than a real person reading a book and telling you all about it. Meet Michael George Knight, the man behind Best Book Bits, who voraciously reads books to upload four summaries a week.

Unlike a lot of other book summarizers, Best Book Bits offers three ways for you to access what a book is all about. There's a full-text summary on the website, a podcast for an audiobook-style precis, and a YouTube video that combines visuals with Knight speaking. Knight has the ability to pick the most important nuggets from any book and present them in context through his own words. It's a wonderful insight.

The summaries are usually about 20 minutes in length to listen or watch, and about the same at a natural reading speed. You can browse the massive library at Best Book Bits alphabetically or by category. Knight has included a helpful Top 20 section as well and made his own book free to read.

3. Overdue (Podcast): Classic and Popular Book Summaries, Including Fiction

Overdue is a podcast about books you've been meaning to read, but no longer have to because someone else is telling you what it's all about. Hosts Andrew Cunningham and Craig Getting dive into one book every Monday to analyze it in an hour-long episode. And unlike most others, they are unafraid to do fiction book summaries.

This isn't a book review podcast though. Andrew and Craig's lively banter is entertaining and informational, and intended for those who've already read the book or don't care about spoilers. It's more a way to cheat on actually reading the book, but knowing enough about it to get away in conversation. And along the way, you'll also learn what the book is trying to say.

Start with the New Listener? section on the website, where they present some of their best episodes. Pick a book you haven't read, listen to its episode, and then head to the Wikipedia page of the book. You'll be surprised by how well you already know the whole plot.

4. Book Video Club and One Percent Better (YouTube): Short Book Summaries in Animated Videos

Can a whole book be turned into a short animated video? Both Book Video Club and One Percent Better do a remarkable job of summarizing books into animations. Both avoid fiction and you'll generally find books on self-improvement, marketing, history, sales, and other such subjects.

Book Video Club keeps the videos short at an average length of three minutes. It's not a cartoon, mind you, but illustrated images that slowly animate to life, while a speaker talks about the lessons from the book. In most cases, you'll understand the salient points, but you'll obviously need to read the book to get the details.

The main One Percent Better channel has several animated videos such as articles, personal stories, etc. So check the Animated Book Summaries section, with videos ranging from three to 15 minutes. Again, it's a similar style of animation, but it's a much deeper dive into the book than Book Video Club.

These aren't the only two channels that animate book summaries, but they do have extensive libraries of finished videos. Check YouTube for more such channels and one-off videos by searching for book summaries.

5. Book Cheat (Podcast): Classic Book Summaries With a Humorous Twist

Book Cheat is hilarious. Yes, it's a book summary podcast that will make you feel like you've read the book even if you haven't, but above all that, it's funny. Host Dave Warneke submits a book report to two guests twice a month, who haven't read the book he's talking about.

The podcast is all about Warneke, who seems to script his summary to elicit reactions from his audience. And those reactions are great because that's what you're also thinking in your head. It lends a more interactive feel to the podcast while giving you breathers to process all that you've heard so far.

The books on offer are all classic novels you never read , from A Streetcar Named Desire to Lord of the Flies. Some books go into double episodes, so it's not really a summary anymore. But hey, if you like the podcast but always found that book difficult to read, this is the next best step.

What About Blinkist and Other Book Summary Apps?

Blinkist has spawned several off-shoots. Some of them use AI to summarize books, others use real humans. The end result is the same: a short, 10-15 minute version of a popular book, in text and audio. But all these apps like 12min , BookShort , Bookey , and more are paid subscription services like Blinkist, so you really need to be sure you'll use them regularly to be worth it.

The good news is there is always a free tier. Apart from the trial version, you can always turn to Blinkist Daily for a free daily book summary. You'll find a similar feature in most of these apps, and that by itself might be enough to make you well-read.

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Best Book Summary Apps 2024 – Tested and Reviewed

I love reading books.

Yet I finish most of my days with the regret I was not able to carve out enough time for reading. Between blogs, podcasts, and chatting with friends, nowadays I’m getting so many recommendations for nonfiction books that my Kindle library grows way faster than what I can read.

I have another problem. Business books usually fall into three categories:

• Great ones: full of interesting ideas and enjoyable to read (like The Unicorn Project or Lost and founder )
• Boring ones: a lot of good ideas written in an extremely boring way
• Bad ones: few ideas lost in a plethora of useless and boring pages

I love books in the first category, and they are usually the ones I review here in my blog. Unluckily, I hate the others.

It usually takes me forever to get to the end of boring nonfiction books.

I give up within the first couple of chapters when I read a bad one. And that sucks because sometimes they still have some interesting concepts I’d like to absorb.

That’s why over the weekend I came up with a new strategy: reading the entire book when it’s great. Fallback to book summaries for categories n. 2 and n. 3.

So, I’ve spent the last couple of days testing out the 4 best book summary apps to see which one is worth subscribing to. And now, I’ve decided to share my findings with you to save you some time should you be facing the same question.

The book summaries apps and websites I’ve tested are:

• getAbstract
• Mentorist (2022 update)
• Headway (2024 update)

But before I declare the best book summary app in 2024…

Is it worth reading a book summary?

Yes and no.

But before we dive deeper, a quick premise. I’m considering only nonfiction books. It would be crazy to read the summary of a novel in my opinion. This also seems to be a consolidated trend in the industry. All the book summary apps I’ve reviewed focus on nonfiction books.

Now, back to your question.

If I had enough time, I’d probably avoid reading book summaries… it feels a bit like cheating.

But I have to admit it’s an effective way to learn the key concepts of an entire book, usually in less than 30 minutes. The big question mark is… will they stick?

The value of reading a full book is that you usually get a lot of examples and repetition of the key concepts. This is useful to make it stick and to convince yourself it’s a good idea you should put into practice.

Reading the summary you get to the core concepts immediately, but you lose a lot of contexts. It feels like eating meal replacement powders: you likely get all the nutrients. But you lose all the taste .

This problem can be big or small depending on the kind of book you’re reading.

If it’s a book about “HR best practices”, it’s likely fine to read the key ideas in 30 minutes.

If you’re reading personal development books or self-improvement books … well, my personal take here is that the key ideas are almost the same on all of these books. And you probably already know them. You’re lacking the motivation to implement them.

In this scenario, reading the original book could be better. The way the author communicates the message. The motivation examples he uses to reinforce it are what really matter and they’re likely gonna be missing in the summaries.

So, if you are the kind of person that could benefit from nonfiction book summaries, let’s find out what’s the best app for you.

My criteria to pick the best book summary apps in 2024

Before I started the free trial of all these book summary apps, I’ve defined some personal criteria to pick which one I would subscribe to and which will be canceled.

I defined four main categories to rank the apps:

• Book catalog : How many book summaries do they have? Do they have the books I want to read? This is a big one and a deal-breaker for me.
• Summary quality : Another critical factor. Is the summary good? Did they capture the core ideas? Is the quality consistent across multiple books?
• Original content : Do they also have their own original content on top of book summaries? Are they any good?
• Features : do they have a mobile app? Is the website or app easy to use? Do they have any interesting unique features?

As you can see I’ve not added price as a relevant category. That’s because, no matter what’s the cost, if I’ll read summaries in a consistent way, I’ll save a lot of money compared to buying each individual book.

I actually added the last two categories after I started testing the various apps. Seems like all of them are moving beyond just book summaries and are starting to produce their own original content. Often curated summaries of multiple books on a specific topic.

On the features side, most of them nowadays also do audio summaries of most books (but machine-generated audio). I also find the usability of the app a very important factor given I’ll be using it every day.

Finally, if you’re curious to know how I tested the catalog section, here’s the list of 12 books I’ve been looking for:

• Why we sleep
• Atomic Habits
• No Rules Rule
• The subtle art of not giving a f**k
• AI Superpowers
• Lost and Founder
• The revenue marketing book
• The unicorn project
• How to lie with statistics
• Traffic secrets
• The making of a manager

Ok, time to start reading some book summaries and pick a winner!

Blinkist is probably the most known summary app in the market and the one that really started this industry. It’s reasonably priced, starting at $14.99 per month or $89.99 per year and it works like a charm.

They divide book summaries into what they call blinks. It’s usually a good mapping to the book chapters or main ideas. Each Blink usually takes no more than 5 minutes to read (or listen). At the end of the book summary, there is always a final part that recaps all the core ideas of the book.

Being the oldest book summary service the quality and catalog are usually very good.

Catalog – Vote 8

In Blinkist I was able to find 8 out of the 12 titles I used for the test. Good but not crazy good. I was actually expecting something better from their 4,500+ book summaries catalog.

Clearly, they’re focusing more and more on their original productions. If a title is a bestseller, it’s 99% sure you’ll find it in Blinkist. When you look for more niche books, there’s a 50-50 chance of not finding them.

Quality – Vote 7

The good thing about Blinkist is their consistency. You can expect all the book summaries to have quite good quality. They summarize a lot. Sometimes I would have preferred some more info on specific details.

The average summary takes 15 minutes to read. I would have preferred to go up to 30 minutes and get more details.

Still, they did a pretty good job in identifying all the core concepts of each book and expressing it in a very compelling way.

Original Content – Vote 7

Most of their original content is in form of Shortcasts. You can think of them as mini podcasts where every episode is usually 10 minutes long. There’s also a written summary for each episode.

They are of good quality and with a good selection of authors. However, I’m not a super fan of the audio format so I ended up not consuming them a lot.

Features – Vote 7

Blinkist has a very good offer. You can read on a desktop through a browser, on mobile, and on tablets.

The quality is very good with very high readability of the book summaries.

The thing I didn’t like was the inconsistency of the user experience across devices.

I LOVE the fact that you can highlight text and save it for later. Going back through my highlights of a book is something I do often. Yet I was not able to understand how to do it on my iPad. And the sync between browser and iPad is odd.

On the browser, the main dashboard is focused on the books you’re reading. On iPad on the discovery of new content. Overall, their book summary app is good but not yet great.

One very nice feature that is worth mentioning is the capability to sync your highlights with Evernote and book summaries with Kindle to read them over there and keep under the same umbrella summaries and full books.

Update May 8th 2023: Blinkist has just been acquired by EdTech startup Go1 . While this will likely have no impact in the short term, things often tend to get messy post-acquisition and we’ll need to check if they’ll keep up with their current mission or align more with Go1 needs.

Update Jan 25th 2024: Luckily, the acquisition doesn’t seem to have impacted Blinkist. So far, they have kept releasing new book summaries at the same pace, and the quality has been consistent since the acquisition.

Shortform was relatively new to the game when I first wrote this blog post, but it’s now one of the market leaders. Their catalog, once relatively small is now almost on par with Blinkist and they keep adding new books consistently with a weekly cadence.

They charge $24 per month or $197 for the annual subscription. They offer a 5 days free trial where you can explore the catalog for free.

Overall they have the best book summaries of all the apps reviewed here, and three years later since I originally wrote this post, I’m still subscribed to their service, and it’s the only book summary app I use nowadays .

The catalog is smaller than Blinkist as you can expect from a newcomer in the market. They claim 1000+ book summaries and, as you can guess, most of them are bestsellers.

I was able to find only 5 of the 12 books used for the tests. I was hoping for something more, to be honest. Most of the marketing books were missing, and even in the bestsellers, there were some gaps.

The upside is that they seem to be adding new titles at a good pace.

( 2022 Update ) The catalog keeps growing slowly but consistently. They have recently launched a Video Summary series which is free on Youtube. They are also publishing super-short summaries on Instagram .

(2023 Update) Since they keep adding books at a great pace, with around 3 to 5 new titles published every week, I’ve rechecked my list, and now 7 out of 12 books are present, absolutely in line with the other top players. I’ve increased the score in this category to a solid 8.

(2024 Update) I’m really impressed by the work Shortform is doing to improve its catalog. I’m now (Jan. 2024) reading “Feel Good Productivity” which I bought from Amazon the day it was released assuming it would take forever to get a summary. Well turns out that after just a month, Shortform has already released the summary! Great job!

Quality – Vote 8.5

The quality of their summaries is the real strength of ShortForm. I love how they structure summaries and the level of depth.

Shortform has the only summaries that can really replace reading the whole book, in my opinion .

All the other apps are only useful to understand if you might like a book before buying it or absorbing a few quotes to sound smart with your friends.

They have a generous 1-page summary to get started with. It’s really high quality, and for a quick read, you could stop there.

But if you want to go more in-depth they also offer a more detailed summary chapter by chapter. When it makes sense, they also have exercises at the end of some chapters.

Another incredible strength of ShortForm is how they make connections outside the specific book to really help you understand the topic. They often mention other books covering the same topic to add value to the summary and give you more context / different points of view.

ShortForm has the best book summaries of the apps reviewed here. Period!

Original Content – Vote 6

They don’t offer original content, but they feature summaries of top articles from the US press. The selection is still fairly limited, with around 500 articles in the catalog. Nothing to go crazy for.

There’s an audio version for all the summaries, but it’s not human-narrated, it’s actually an AI voice, which I would not listen to for 30 minutes.

Features – Vote 8

Good web and mobile versions, so avid readers will enjoy their summaries everywhere.

The experience is consistent across devices and there’s full support for highlighting text or adding notes which, unlike Blinkist, works very well also on mobile.

A nice touch is the support for dark mode in the reader to enjoy your summaries also at night.

The mobile app improved a lot over the last year and it’s now very fast and responsive. Overall it’s a very pleasing experience.

A big one for Shortform is the possibility to download a book summary as a PDF . Way more flexible than the Kindle integration found in Blinkist.

Another feature that I love is their support for ReadWise syncing. ReadWise is my app of choice to gather together all the highlights from books and articles I’ve read and check them daily to brainstorm. It’s great to have my ShortForm highlights imported there.

Update 8/8/2022: Shortform has just released another great feature that saves me money and makes my life easier. They now integrate and sync notes with Notion!

Overall, it’s a great book summary app from a software standpoint, and they keep improving it at a good pace.

The cherry on the pie is a useful summarization Chrome extension that can help you summarize in one click any webpage you’re reading, even youtube videos. It works extremely well, and I’ve been using it more and more to extract key information from posts I was reading. Since we were talking about Notion, I also use it in my daily note-taking workflow to attach some notes to the URLs I’m storing in my second brain.

GetAbstract

GetAbstract has a very unique approach. They’ve been in the book summary apps space forever with a strong focus on enterprise offerings.

Looking at their website, it’s clear that their main focus is selling to companies to give multiuser access to their employees. Still, they also have subscription plans for private users with a $29.90 monthly price tag. It goes up to $290 for yearly subscriptions.

Oddly enough, if you connect from Europe, there’s also a cheaper plan that gives you access to a more limited catalog.

Their approach is different from all the other players. While everyone is playing in a grey area from a copyright standpoint, GetAbstract acquires the rights from the publisher before writing a book summary.

Catalog – Vote 4

Even tho’ they have the largest catalog with 20,000+ book summaries, they also have the worst catalog.

Since they try to acquire rights to summarize books, you’ll find a lot of niche books but very few best sellers. I found none of the 12 books I was looking for, which was shocking.

For some of them, a review was available. For others, they said they had selected the book as interesting and were trying to secure rights. For many nothing could be found.

Clearly, the focus of this book summary service is different from the others. If you’re looking for random books to read or some very niche stuff it could be a fit. Otherwise, I’d stay away.

Quality – Vote 6

Given their unique approach, I was expecting really high-quality summaries. I was disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, they are good. But not mind-blowing. They are also quite short, in a way comparable to Blinkist. Audio summaries are available for most books and are usually 8-12 minutes long.

Unique Content – Vote 0

They don’t seem to have any unique content added to their offer. It’s not a big issue for me, as I’m mainly looking for book summaries.

My take here is that other players recognize there’s a copyright threat to their core offer. So, they started differentiating with more and more unique content. GetAbstract secured legal rights before writing a review so they didn’t feel the need to diversify their offer.

Features – Vote 6

Everything works smoothly both on the website and the mobile app.

They support highlighting, and they have the concept of channels where you can create (or consume) curated collections of books.

I don’t like the reading experience on browsers. A lot of distracting elements in the interface and small fonts make them look more like regular blog posts than the interface of an ebook reader. The experience is way better on the iPad app.

On the bright side, you can download a PDF version of all their summaries. Overall, it’s not among my favorite book summary apps.

Another consolidated player in the book summary apps space. Instaread ‘s unique take on book summary apps is to produce a lot of high-quality, unique content on top of summaries.

Pricing is relatively cheap; they start at $8.99 per month or $89 if you go yearly. They also have a nice lifetime deal where you can get unlimited access forever at $299. It’s not bad at all if you are planning to read book summaries as a life habit.

The free trial lasts 7 days.

Catalog – Vote 5.5

Instaread has 1,000+ book summaries like Shortform but in my selection of 12 books, I was able to find only 4 of them, the big hits. None of the more niche books I was looking for were available.

This may also be due to the fact that within the 1,000-plus books, they also list a lot of fiction.

When it comes to the quality of the content… It’s okay but not my favorite one. It’s basically a collection of chapter summaries with the key takeaways of each chapter.

Everything is very condensed and schematic with a bullet-point approach. I don’t love it, but that’s a matter of personal taste. I have to admit it’s well done.

I missed the one-pager introduction that ShortForm has.

An audio version is available for every book. Like the other apps, it’s not human read, but it’s a generated voice.

Unique Content – Vote 8

Instaread clearly bets heavily on original content.

First of all (even tho’ it’s not unique), they have a large collection of article summaries from top publishers they’ve partnered with. This includes articles from The New York Times, Harvard Business Reviews, and many others.

On top of this, they have a lot of Instaread Originals. Short-form books on almost any subject. A strong area of attention seems to be biographies. They cover anyone from Kamala Harris to Jack Dorsey. They are usually well-done and insightful. Reading time for their originals averages on the 15 minutes mark.

Features – 6

They support both web and mobile with a pretty good app.

The reading experience is ok, even though moving from one chapter summary to the next could be better.

A unique feature of the mobile app is the Cards section, where you can read through cards, each containing a key takeaway from the book.

It’s not possible to save highlights from the summaries… this, for me, is a real deal-breaker.

Headway is a newcomer to this list, added in 2024. It’s becoming really popular and has an impressive growth.

Pricing starts at $14.99 per month, but, full disclosure: they were nice enough to give me a free account for this review.

I just discovered that as of January 2024, it’s being listed on AppSumo to purchase as a lifetime deal for $59. A true bargain if you end up liking the app. This is great news but also a bit scary… I’m often a bit skeptical of mature companies running lifetime deals… they are great when you get started as a marketing opportunity, but in the long run, they are not economically sustainable.

Headway has a very unique positioning within the book summary apps space. While competitors focus a lot on the core idea of book summaries, Headway wants to position itself as a personal growth tool with a lot of emphasis on self-assessment tests and reading lists based on which area you want to improve.

This approach is somehow refreshing, especially for users who are not book nerds with a long list of titles they want to read but rather have an objective they want to achieve.

Now, let’s see how it compares to the other tools in my four categories!

Catalog – 8

The catalog is large, even though it’s slightly skewed towards personal growth books. However, I found 7 out of the 12 books in my test list. It’s worth noting that 3 to 4 books in the list are very niche, and it’s not surprising that they’re not here.

Anyway, they keep adding new books quickly, and I found many relatively new books. It’s worth noting, however, that in the last few months, they appear to have reduced the pace of publishing.

Overall, I think it’s almost comparable to Blinkist and maybe larger than Shortform.

Quality – 6

This is probably the most disappointing part of Headway… it’s also very personal so you should decide by yourself: I don’t like too much their summaries.

The idea is good; for every book, they highlight some key concepts and you can read through each one of them to go more in-depth. Each point, on average, is longer than alternatives like Blinkist, but is nowhere near the depth and quality of Shortform.

Very often, it seems more like a collection of quotes and sentences taken from the book rather than a straight-to-the-point summary. 

The idea of having one or more key concepts within each chapter that you can easily save and then access later in the form of a flash card is very nice. And effective when well executed. It’s not always the case.

As an example on a page from “AI Superpowers” about the AI revolution and how it will eliminate manual laborers, the key takeaway that you can save is: 

“The internet connects the world easily and quickly, creating an environment where ideas can be exchanged and discussed.”

This is completely off-point and obvious… thank you for reminding me what the internet is!

The quality varies a lot from book to book, and it’s often inconsistent.

Original Content – 4

Headway doesn’t produce original content, but I’m feeling generous, and I’ll consider as original content their effort in content curation.

They do have many guided “challenges” to learn something new. Each challenge has a duration of days, and each day it’ll recommend reading a specific book from a curated list to learn a new skill. It’s nice and well-curated.

They also produced some “Visual stories” for bestsellers. Think of them as Instagram stories for book summaries. There are few of them, and honestly, they are pointless. Here’s an example:

Can you see the problem? it looks half-baked. The text is small for the amount of space available but most of all… the illustration is nice but completely useless to help you better understand the concept.

I think this is a big missed opportunity. Some people need visuals to learn new concepts. And an Infographic-like approach could have helped a lot differentiate Headway from competitors. These illustrations are nice but don’t add anything in terms of value.

Features – 5

The app is overall okay but doesn’t shine.

It has a nice UI in category pages, but I don’t love the reading interface… it’s too minimal and with little control over fonts.

One key feature that is missing is a web version; I get it… their approach is so unique it needs to be mobile first. On the other hand, now and then, I find it useful to access book summaries from the web browser too. Especially for copying and pasting to take notes.

Notes are the other issue I have with the App. While Headway lets you highlight and store text, everything remains within the app. As of now, there’s no integration with ReadWise or Notion.

Mentorist is a new entry I’ve discovered in January 2023.

It has a unique twist. Their focus is not only on summarizing books but more on helping you execute what you learn.

I can relate to the core value proposition of this app. Way too many people use the number of books they read in a year as their key metric rather than focusing on really understanding the book and taking action.

That’s what intrigued me the most about this app. Let’s see if it lived up to its promises.

Catalog – 5

The catalog here is very limited. Out of the 12 books in my basket, I was only able to find 3, the most popular ones, and focused on self-growth. Quite surprisingly, they didn’t even have “No rules rule” which is very popular.

A back of the napkins calculation based on their books page as of March 2022, shows only 182 books in their catalog.

Somehow this was expected, Metorist launched later compared to its competitors in the book summary space, and clearly, it still has to build its catalog.

The good note is that since I’ve signed up to the service, they’ve been adding 2 to 4 books every week and the browsing of the catalog is very pleasant with a lot of curated collections.

What can I say… it’s acceptable but not great. The summaries are very short, divided into short pages. Most books range from 10 to 20 pages, and there’s a bit of inconsistency among the length of the pages from one book to another.

What I did like about Mentorist is the audio summary. It’s usually in the 20-minute range, and finally, it’s not recorded by a robotic voice but read by a human being. Overall listening to the summaries has been quite a pleasant experience.

Personally, I think I’d use it to understand if I want to buy and read the full version of a book or to read something I’m not really interested in. For something that I care about, the summaries are too short.

Unique Content – 0

Right now Mentorist doesn’t have any unique content and they’re only focusing on summarizing popular books.

It’s a choice that somehow makes sense given they’ve chosen the app dynamics as a differentiator while other players in the space all have the same kind of app and are trying to diversify themselves more based on the catalog and their unique content catalog.

Features – 8

Feature-wise, Mentorist built a pretty good App to consume summarized books. As you can see it support dark mode and overall it’s always pretty fast and responsive.

The thing that I like the least is the reading experience. Instead of a full-page reader, it opens the summary in a relatively small window.

Highlights work very well with a dedicated page to check them and the capability to set reminders to read them again and set aside some time to brainstorm.

Finally, at the end of each book’s summary page, there’s an actionable takeaway that you can add to your list. It only takes one click and comes with some quick steps to execute it.

Once added you’ll be asked what’s the objective you want to achieve with that specific takeaway and you’ll receive reminders.

You can also log your progress and add notes.

Overall it’s a very good app with a strong idea behind it.

Good enough to forget about the small catalog and the mid-quality summaries? Not for me. I don’t think a “todo-list” tied to a book summary will make much of a difference for me. But if they improve the quality and the catalog they might be on the right path to have real differentiation in this market.

Other Book Summary Websites

There are a lot of other players in the space. I’ve tried a bunch of them, like 12min , Perlego , and ReadinGraphics for visual learners.

All of these websites offer their own take in the “app that summarizes books” space. I don’t think it’s worth mentioning them in this comparison because of their catalog size.

It’s gonna be interesting to revisit them in a year (yes, I promise I’ll keep this updated at least yearly) and see which one increased its catalog the most to become more appealing.

What’s gonna happen to the book summaries space?

My personal take is that this space is too crowded with very little differentiation between players.

Adding more books, of course, is the best way to get more customers. On the other side once all the best-sellers are covered, scaling up the number of summaries for niche books might be too expensive compared to the number of potential customers they could bring in.

This might also open opportunities for smaller players that focus on a specific niche. As an example, I’d be 100% happy to signup even at a premium price to a service specialized in marketing books.

The other question mark is legal. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if book summaries are legal or not. For sure, things are changing. A few years ago, all the services were using original covers of the books. Nowadays, no one does.

For sure, there’s a level of risk involved in this business, and should the space become big enough, publishers could partner with these apps or go hard against them and keep all the pie for themselves.

Finally, another potential disruption to this industry could be AI and, specifically GPT-3. This new system has already proven to be able to write books… it’s gonna be relatively simple to use it to write book summaries at scale and with good consistency.

The Best Book Summary App in 2024

Guess it’s time to declare a winner.

Let’s go by exclusion!

getAbstract … sorry not my cup of tea. I loved the fact that you were the only ones not forcing me to insert the credit card to join the trial… but your catalog is just not a good fit for my interests.

Mentorist … The idea behind it it’s nice, helping you put into practice what you learn. But the catalog and the summary length are not where they should be right now.

Headway… It’s a missed opportunity. They have the unique concept of focusing more on a personal-growth path rather than just book reviews. It remains an idea poorly executed.

Instaread … well played with original contents and article summaries, but you didn’t excel in the catalog or the summary quality so I don’t see a reason to sign up; I’m canceling my trial, but you could be a good fit for many.

Blinkist …size does matter. And when it comes to the books that I care about, they have the largest database. However, quality matters the most for me, that’s why in the 2022 update, I’ve moved Blinkist to the second spot. Their summaries are just too short for me. They don’t have the best mobile App. Overall, the quality is consistent, and it’s reasonably priced.

ShortForm … It’s my winner for the 2024 edition of this post. The catalog is not yet where I’d love it to be, but it keeps growing, the app is great. They let me download PDF versions of the summaries, and the quality of the summaries is just great. By far the only ones that can really replace reading the full book and passing enough information to make it actionable. It’s more expensive, but it’s a price I’m more than happy to pay for the value I’m getting.

Taking everything into account, ShortForm is the winner of my roundup of the best book summary websites in 2024.

Conclusions

That’s it for this year. It was a tight Blinkist vs Short Form battle, but in the end, to call a winner, I just went with the one I keep using way more often. If you want to pick just one app go for ShortForm , you won’t regret it. If you can afford to spend a bit more, add Blinkist to the mix to get a quick overview on a broader number of books.

I hope I have helped you save some time and money by picking the best tool among all the book summary sites.

Now, it’s up to you to decide if reading book summaries is good enough for you. I still have mixed feelings about it and wish I had more time to read the full-length books. Unluckily, I don’t, and I found these summaries to be useful when there’s something I know I would not love to read, but would still be valuable for my personal growth.

Did I forget some Apps in this roundup? If there’s any service worth testing that I didn’t mention, just let me know in the comments below and I’ll be happy to add it.

Bonus Tip: Book Summary Apps coupon code

Nah, I’m just kidding. I don’t have any coupon code. BUT…

I have a couple of tips to save some money when subscribing to most of these apps.

First of all, wait for the full length of your trial. Some of them might send you a 10% discount if you upgrade to a paid plan earlier.

Second, signup through their websites, not the mobile app. This is for a couple of reasons:

• Some websites have popups that offer a 10% discount if you sign up for a trial
• Some Apps actually have different pricing if you subscribe on the browser or on mobile. Mobile is usually expensive (because of % they have to pay Apple and Google)

Finally, even if you should not do it, if you live in Europe with the current crazy EUR/USD exchange rate, you might want to use a VPN and sign up in $ masking your connection as a US resident. I use TunnelBear for this usually.

Massimo Chieruzzi

I'm Massimo and I run this blog. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none, juggling between startups, marketing, and product. You might know me as the co-founder of AdEspresso and Breadcrumbs. This blog is my playground where I build stupid tools to solve everyday marketing problems and experiment with the latest marketing tactics!

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24 comments.

July 26, 2022

Hey Massimo! First of all, congrats on the excellent post! Strict to the point, you reviewed what really matters. I want to ask you if you have ever heard/tried Accel5, from EBSCO? Their content seems niched for me, but I've found some engaging titles there and also liked the quality of the first summary I got. Have a nice week Best, Thiago

July 27, 2022

Thanks for pointing that out Thiago, I had never heard of them but the catalog looks interesting enough, I'll try to check them out in the near future!

August 13, 2022

I really love your breakdown here. For me Shortform is also the clear winner. One thing to keep in mind which is a bit unfortunate is that in recent months shortform decided to stick to publishing new summaries exclusively as 1-page summaries. In the past the 1-page summary was the brief introduction and you could read the whole deep dive afterwards. Now there is no deep dive anymore which unfortunately brings it down to the level of blinkist because I feel like I'm missing out on the detailed analysis...

September 5, 2022

Hey Timon, Yeah, that's an unfortunate choice even tho' I get the rationale behind it from an economic standpoint :( I'll reach out to them to get more insights and update the post. I'm also afraid the decision was based on monitoring users' behavior and realizing that most users were stopping at the 1 pager. Still, I find their one-pager way more in depth and well done than Blinkist. Ciao! Max

August 16, 2022

Why isn’t summary.com listed in this comparison?

Hey Ryan, Good catch, I had never heard of it, I'll check it out and update the post! Max

October 29, 2022

Nice! I'd like to publish a translation of this article in my site. I think my readers will enjoy what you have to say. Is it possible? :)

Yes as long as you give credit and link the original article on top of your translated one :)

I really really loves reading this blog post. Very insightful abd thank you for the time you took to put this together. I never wrote s feedback on a blog before but here you go, this one is just wow. Loved it. I'll sign up to one of these apps.

November 7, 2022

November 17, 2022

Would love to hear your thoughts on Headway - I'm about to end my trial and enjoyed the summary I read but obviously I want the best app possible.

December 5, 2022

I'll try to add Headway in my next review of this post for 2023 :)

January 24, 2023

Thanks for a very thorough write up. Is there anyway to find out if a specific book is covered PRIOR to signing up for Blink or Shortform.? Do they have a public index?

January 25, 2023

Hey Neil, It's a bit tricky but you can. For Shortform, here you'll find a list of books by genre. Those with the button "Read full summary" are in their library. For Blinkist just use their top navigation under Explore :)

April 15, 2023

I'm so excited to read this one. It's wonderful!!

Book summaries

May 17, 2023

May 18, 2023

No sorry, I'm planning to go multi-language at some point, also your blog seems to be in english :)

September 28, 2023

Thank you so much for this excellent source of info on summary apps. I am now 70 yo and just do not want to waste my time and funds at this point. You have helped me!

November 30, 2023

Glad to hear that Paula!!

February 4, 2024

where is the summary of this page? kidding..thanks for great review. usually such comparison reviews have a comparison table at the bottom with a full view across all apps and ratings. helps to see a bigger picture?

ahahhaha that's a great point thanks! I'll try to add it asap, over time this review has become huge :)

March 5, 2024

This post was AMAZING!!! I wish you had a review on literally everything! Thank you for taking the time to update this annually. This space is growing and being able to come to a trusted source for the best option saved me much appreciated time and money! Your thorough, helpful, and reliable all key qualities that seem difficult to find these days🤍

March 8, 2024

Wow, this was incredibly thorough and helpful. I also subscribe to shortform but was wondering if there was anything out there with comparable summary quality and a lower price. Now, I'm happy to stay with them :)

April 29, 2024

This is a very thorough review! Thanks! A lot of these are so pricey though and I don't need audio format so I use Littler Books.

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QuickRead - Book Summaries 4+

Quickread as, designed for iphone.

• 3.2 • 24 Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

iPhone Screenshots

Description.

QuickRead offers you over 500 free book summaries in both audio and text format in many categories: Entrepreneurship Personal development Science Economics Money Investments Relationships Philosophy Health Psychology Success Marketing Happiness + + + Website: http://quickread.com/app Terms & Conditions: http://quickread.com/terms.html Privacy Policy: http://quickread.com/privacy.html

Version 2.1.3

Bugfix MInor improvements

Ratings and Reviews

App is crashing.

App crashes as soon as you hit play. I have updated the app but that didn’t work. I deleted it and re-installed but it keeps crashing.

Pleasantly surprised!

Color me impressed! Please consider adding a Dark Mode. I read a lot at night and all the white screens are blinding. Also, implement sorting for your library of bookmarked books, like most recently added, alphabetical, etc like you did for exploring different categories. Keep up the great work and keep expanding your library of titles. I was going to provide feedback from the app, but the keyboard covers up the submit button, so I’m leaving my feedback here as a review. One more thing… can you make it so that you can listen to the audio while following along with the text? I have other similar apps and you can do this in all of them such as Blinkist. I find that my retention goes up extremely when I have time to listen while reading together. Cheers 🍻

Developer Response ,

Hi! Thanks for you great feedback! A dark mode will be featured in version 2 which will launch in a couple of months. We will also add the sorting feature and fix the bug in the feedback screen. You will also be able to read while listening in version 2.

Buggy and poor tech support

I got the app and paid for premium because I enjoyed QuickRead’s YT channel and wanted to be supportive. I would’ve been better off sticking to YT and just donating. The only pro of the app is the ability to search for summaries by topic and name. Otherwise, don’t bother with the app- ESPECIALLY the premium membership.

App Privacy

The developer, QuickRead AS , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Used to Track You

The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:

• Diagnostics

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The Better Brain Library

Book Summaries

100+ books on business, science, and productivity, join the newsletter for free and read a book every week.

How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible

The Tipping Point

How little things can make a big difference.

The 4-Hour Body

An uncommon guide to rapid fat-loss, incredible sex, and becoming superhuman.

The Year of Magical Thinking

The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Building a business when there are no easy answers.

Skip the Line

The 10,000 experiments rule.

Nonviolent Communication

A language of life.

Superintelligence

Paths, dangers, strategies.

The A Method for Hiring

My Morning Routine

How successful people start every day inspired.

Poor Charlie's Almanack

The essential wit and wisdom of charles t. munger.

The Body Keeps the Score

Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma.

Trust Me, I'm Lying

Confessions of a media manipulator.

No Rules Rules

Netflix and the culture of reinvention.

Reinvent Yourself

Human Hacking

Win friends, influence people, and leave them better off for having met you.

The Checklist Manifesto

How to get things right.

The Lean Startup

How today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses.

Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Calling Bullshit

The art of skepticism in a data-driven world.

The Power of a Positive No

How to say no and still get to yes.

The Selfish Gene

The Alchemist

The Ride of a Lifetime

Lessons learned from 15 years as ceo of the walt disney company.

First Things First

Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Good Vibes, Good Life

How self-love is the key to unlocking your greatness.

The Score Takes Care of Itself

My philosophy of leadership.

A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Think and Grow Rich

Zero to One

Notes on startups, or how to build the future.

The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power

How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

The Law of Success

How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction

Crossing the Chasm

Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers.

Forgiving What You Can't Forget

Discover how to move on, make peace with painful memories, and create a life that's beautiful again.

The Startup Owner's Manual

The step-by-step guide for building a great company.

Stillness Is the Key

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

The productivity habits of 7 billionaires, 13 olympic athletes, 29 straight-a students, and 239 entrepreneurs.

Unwinding Anxiety

New science shows how to break the cycles of worry and fear to heal your mind.

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Can't Hurt Me

Master your mind and defy the odds.

Extreme Productivity

Boost your results, reduce your hours.

The Optimistic Child

A proven program to safeguard children against depression and build lifelong resilience.

The Millionaire Fastlane

Crack the code to wealth and live rich for a lifetime.

Crucial Accountability

Tools for resolving violated expectations, broken commitments, and bad behavior, second edition ( paperback).

A Flaw in Human Judgment

The 48 Laws of Power

The Energy Plan

Eat smart, feel strong, perform at your peak.

Built to Sell

Creating a business that can thrive without you.

Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

How to Get Rich

One of the world's greatest entrepreneurs shares his secrets.

The Eight Master Lessons of Nature

What nature teaches us about living well in the world.

Smarter Faster Better

The transformative power of real productivity.

7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness

Power ideas from america's foremost business philosopher.

The Joy of Missing Out

Live more by doing less.

The School of Life

An emotional education.

How Successful People Think

Change your thinking, change your life.

Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

The Power of Intention

Learning to co-create your world your way.

The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment

Achieve more success with less stress.

How to Be an Epicurean

The ancient art of living well.

The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most: the Instant New York Times Bestseller

The Book of Humans

A brief history of culture, sex, war, and the evolution of us.

Badass Habits

Cultivate the confidence, boundaries, and know-how to upgrade your life.

The Urban Monk

Eastern wisdom and modern hacks to stop time and find success, happiness, and peace.

Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues

The Practice

Shipping creative work.

Bulletproof Problem Solving

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How to Do the Work

Recognize your patterns, heal from your past, and create your self.

The Japanese Method for Transforming Habits, One Small Step at a Time

Die with Zero

Getting all you can from your money and your life.

Employee to Entrepreneur

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The Hidden Driver of Excellence

The Creator Mindset

92 tools to unlock the secrets to innovation, growth, and sustainability.

How to Change

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Lovingkindness

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How to Focus on Your Goals and Create a Life You Love

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A peak performance primer.

Head Strong

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The Lazy Genius Way

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How to Make Money in Stocks

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Beyond Order

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Emotional Intelligence

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A Philosophical Guide

A Promised Land

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Ready Aim Fire!

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The Slight Edge

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The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company

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The 4-Hour Workweek

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Never Split the Difference

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Rich Dad Poor Dad

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The Psychology of Money

Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness.

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Dare to Lead

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The 7 Best Apps to Have a More Productive Reading Experience

W ith thousands of books available at your fingertips, reading has become one of the most accessible habits you can acquire. Yet, it’s not always easy to stay motivated and keep track of all the books you want to read.

Fortunately, There are apps that can help you reach your reading goals while enhancing your overall reading experience. Whether you’re a bookworm or a newbie, try these apps to read smarter and get more out of your books.

Basmo is an excellent tool for avid readers and those striving to reach their reading goals. You don’t need to worry about how to achieve your reading goals—Basmo does the math for you. Enter how many books you want to read this year, and Basmo will calculate how many minutes per day you should read.

On the My Books page, you can manage a digital bookshelf for all the books you are reading. You can also begin reading sessions on separate books to track your reading time. Basmo also displays a completion percentage to measure your progress as you read.

If you’re curious about your reading speed, you can head over to the Stats tab. Here, you can discover detailed analytics about your reading habits and how they compare with the rest of the population. Examples of Basmo’s statistics include your longest reading session, current streak, and hourly reading rate.

Download: Basmo for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

2. Read More

If you want to get more knowledge from the books you read, this next app can be an invaluable companion by helping you retain the information you’ve learned. Read More lets you capture quotes from your favorite books and effortlessly share them.

Thanks to the handy Highlights tab, you can easily highlight key information from books. Simply select a book from your library, enter the chapter number, and add as many highlights as you like. If you’re serious about reading and want to upgrade, you can use the Pro version's text scanning feature to automatically add highlights.

If you have trouble sticking to long-term goals, try setting short-term reading goals using the monthly resolution feature. You can also earn reading streaks for an extra boost of motivation.

Download: Read More for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)

If you’re eager to explore different perspectives on books you have read, why not join a virtual book club ? Fable is a community-driven app where you can share your thoughts with others and post suggestions.

You can create posts from the Home tab, leave comments on others' posts, and even start your own book club. The Club tab helps you discover popular book clubs categorized by genre and popularity.

Fable also features a book reviews section, where you can read book reviews or write your own. Fable is a must-have if you’re eager to share thoughts with like-minded people.

Download : Fable for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

If you're passionate about reading but struggle to find the time, 12min offers an innovative solution. It provides concise summaries of the most powerful ideas from renowned books. Explore new titles in the Discover tab. Then, head to the Library tab to access critical summary reviews for a superfast reading experience.

You can listen to summaries in audiobook format or read the text version. On the reading display, you can adjust the text size and enable dark mode to reduce eye strain at night.

The Playlists tab is great for further exploration, listing a collection of book summaries (called “microbooks.”) If you need extra push to start your reading habit, you can set up daily reading reminders. For competition with others, head over to the leaderboard page, where you can also earn achievements.

Download : 12min for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

5. Reading Trainer

Reading Trainer is one of the best apps to improve your reading speed . You can improve your comprehension and absorb information more efficiently by completing exercises and games.

Whether you’re looking to read emails, articles, or books faster, Reading Trainer builds a personalized curriculum based on your preferences. As part of this, you’ll take a reading speed test, which is great for seeing what level you’re currently at.

Letter Jumble, Word Paris, and Text Search are just a few of the exercises to help strengthen your reading abilities. You can level up your reading power for a game-like experience and view detailed statistics to track your progress. This includes a rating for each exercise so you can easily identify your strengths and weaknesses. If you want to make speed reading your superpower, try out Reading Trainer and make your to-read list vanish in no time.

Download : Reading Trainer for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

6. GoodReads

GoodReads is the place to go if you’re looking for the best book recommendations to maximize your reading experience. The app has become largely known due to its organizational features and popular review system.

You can organize books into digital shelves and create tags to manage books like a pro. GoodReads is also excellent for receiving personalized recommendations. Based on your reviews, GoodReads provides you with suggested books, authors, and readers.

You can search for books by their title, author, or ISBN. As an extra benefit of using the mobile app, you can scan books instantly using the book capture feature. From your profile, you can also connect with friends, which is great for building a new habit with friends .

Download : GoodReads for Android | iOS (Free)

7. StoryGraph

The world of books is endless, so finding what book to read next can be difficult. StoryGraph solves this issue by offering book suggestions based on your current mood. Simply tell StoryGraph what you’re in the mood for, and it will do the rest.

To help StoryGraph understand your personality, you’ll take a quick survey to address your preferences. This includes what books you typically avoid, saving you time when searching for suggestions.

Tags are another useful way to discover books with StoryGraph. You can also invite friends to a Buddy Read and complete reading challenges together. This involves setting an end date so you and your friends can race together to finish books.

Download : StoryGraph for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

Upgrade Your Reading Experience and Get More From Books With These Apps

Reading is one of the best ways to acquire new knowledge fast without hiring a coach or taking a course. With so many books available, it can be difficult to know where to start. These apps can help you read more books, retain your knowledge, engage with a reading community, and improve your reading speed.

Embrace the digital age of reading, and make the most of your literary adventures with these apps by your side. Happy reading!

How to Read More on iPhones

iPhone users have an entire universe in their pockets. With all the entertainment options out there, it can be difficult to focus on one of the more traditional pastimes: reading. 

Those who want to spend more time reading are in luck; there are thousands of apps out there that summarize the classics. And, on top of the more obvious options, there are settings, free resources, and other apps that can optimize your reading experience.  

So, if you’re wondering how to read more books on your iPhone, you’re in the right place. 

Optimize Your iPhone Settings 

Accessibility features can make a world of difference for people who want to learn how to read more on their iPhones. 

Customize Your Text 

You can change the size and weight of your text, as well as the darkness in apps that support Dynamic Type. Settings, Mail, Messages, Notes, and the Calendar apps all support Dynamic Type. 

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size to change any of the following presets. 

• Text size. Drag the slider to adjust the size of the text and make it more legible. 
• Boldness. Turn on Bold Text to emphasize the text on your screen. 
• Darkness. Turn on Increase Contrast to make the text stand out. 
• Identify tappable text. Turn on Button Shapes to automatically underline and highlight text that is tappable.  

Strategically Move Apps 

When I first became interested in how to read more books on my iPhone, I started by organizing my apps into folders. To avoid apps draining my time, all the usual suspects (Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit) went into a folder labeled “Social media”. 

Once all the apps were neatly tidied away, I placed the folders on the second page of my home screen and left all the reading-related apps on the first page. Although it only takes a millisecond to swipe to get to the folders, that could be just enough time to remind yourself about your reading goals. 

Check Out Free eBooks 

The rise of eBook apps such as Amazon Kindle has been great for bibliophiles, but these types of apps require monthly subscriptions. The good news is that there are plenty of places to access eBooks for free on your iPhone. 

• Google Books. You might have to search around for books that have previews, but Google Books is still a great option for people who want immediate access to timeless classics. 
• Project Gutenberg. Offering over 70,000 free eBooks, Project Gutenberg is one of the largest resources for free reading materials on the web.
• Open Library. You can read, borrow, and discover more than three million books via Open Library. 

Make Websites More Readable 

Before you search the web for how to read more on your iPhone, you need to ensure that your settings are optimized. 

There are dozens of ways to make websites more readable on iPhones, but here are our favorites. 

Use Safari’s Reader View

Reader View simplifies the text on the page by removing ads and preset layouts, creating a distraction-free reading experience. It is great for people who want to reduce eye strain, eliminate visual distractions, and get to the heart of whatever article or book they want to read. 

This feature is only available on Safari. Safari is the default browser on iOS, so it’s not difficult to find. 

To activate Reader View, just click the “AA” icon located in the address bar. This will open up a menu of options where you can click “Show Reader”.

You can even customize the font and size of the text, as well as the background color of the page. Some might prefer a white background, while others find white text with a black background far more readable. 

Are you frequently putting off your reading? Check out our 4 Best Read-it-Later Apps for iPhones .

Transform Text into Spoken Word

There’s a lot of discourse about how to read more books, but what about articles? It’s easy enough to find audible versions of literary classics, but the same can’t be said for long-form blog content. 

If you want to read (or rather, listen to) an in-depth exposé in Vanity Fair or a thought piece from The New Yorker, you’re in luck.

Go to Settings  > Accessibility > Spoken Content and turn on “Speak Selection” or “Speak Screen”. If you choose “Speak Selection” a speak button will appear every time you select text. If you choose “Speak Screen” you can swipe down with two fingers at the top of any article and Siri will read you the whole page.

Find Apps that Suit Your Reading Style 

We are using the term “reading” loosely here, but bear with us. Audiobooks and book summaries are replacing traditional books because they fit into our modern, fast-paced lives. Finding time to read entire books has never been more difficult, which is why so many people are switching to alternatives. 

You can find our 5 Best Apps for Reading on iPhones here. 

Get the SparkNotes Version 

Granted, this might not be the best option for people who like the experience of reading a book, but it’s great for people who want to find the nuggets of gold in nonfiction books and articles. 

You can opt for a classic such as SparkNotes, or branch out and try one of the many book summary apps available on iOS. 

Here are a few of our favorites. 

• Blinkist. Divides book summaries into “blinks”, which take no more than five minutes to read or listen to. 
• Headway. A newcomer, but nonetheless popular because of its unique focus on personal growth and use of self-assessment tests. 
• Shortform. A more expensive option, but it is quickly becoming one of the most popular summary apps out there. 

Beware, many book summary apps require subscriptions. The monthly prices range from just $8 to $25, so there’s a considerable difference between apps. That being said, there are lots of deals. Right now, Headway is available on AppSumo for a one-time purchase of $59.

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News you can't use —

Top news app caught sharing “entirely false” ai-generated news, most downloaded local news app adds disclaimer that it's not always "error-free.".

Ashley Belanger - Jun 5, 2024 8:57 pm UTC

After the most downloaded local news app in the US, NewsBreak, shared an AI-generated story about a fake New Jersey shooting last Christmas Eve, New Jersey police had to post a statement online to reassure troubled citizens that the story was "entirely false," Reuters reported .

"Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described," the cops' Facebook post said. "It seems this 'news' outlet's AI writes fiction they have no problem publishing to readers."

It took NewsBreak—which attracts over 50 million monthly users—four days to remove the fake shooting story, and it apparently wasn't an isolated incident. According to Reuters, NewsBreak's AI tool, which scrapes the web and helps rewrite local news stories, has been used to publish at least 40 misleading or erroneous stories since 2021.

These misleading AI news stories have caused real harm in communities, seven former NewsBreak employees, speaking anonymously due to confidentiality agreements, told Reuters.

Sometimes, the AI gets the little details wrong. One Colorado food bank, Food to Power, had to turn people away after the app posted inaccurate food distribution times.

Other times, the AI wholly fabricates events. A Pennsylvania charity, Harvest912 , told Reuters that it had to turn homeless people away when NewsBreak falsely advertised a 24-hour foot-care clinic.

"You are doing HARM by publishing this misinformation—homeless people will walk to these venues to attend a clinic that is not happening," Harvest912 pleaded in an email requesting that NewsBreak take down the story.

NewsBreak told Reuters that all the erroneous articles affecting those two charities were removed but also blamed the charities for supposedly posting inaccurate information on their websites.

"When NewsBreak identifies any inaccurate content or any violation of our community standards, we take prompt action to remove that content," the company told Reuters.

NewsBreak outed source of fake shooting story

Dodging accountability is not necessarily a good look, but it's seemingly become a preferred tactic for defenders of AI tools. In defamation suits, OpenAI has repeatedly insisted that users are responsible for publishing harmful ChatGPT outputs , not the company, as one prominent example. According to Reuters, NewsBreak declined to explain why the app "added a disclaimer to its homepage in early March, warning that its content 'may not always be error-free.'"

Reuters found that not only were NewsBreak's articles "not always" error-free, but sometimes the app published local news stories "under fictitious bylines." An Ars review suggests that it's likely that the app is also scraping news stories, perhaps written by AI, that also seem to use fictitious bylines.

NewsBreak told Reuters that "the inaccurate information" in the fake shooting story "originated from" a "content source," as opposed to being hallucinated by AI.

The content source identified by NewsBreak is an article on a news site called FindPlace.xyz. It was written by a journalist named Amelia Washington, who has contributed most of the site's most recent content. There is no public profile for Amelia Washington outside of the news site, and a reverse image search of the photo used with her bio suggests a stock photo was used. The same photo appeared on a testimonial for a nutritional supplement on Amazon and on posts for foreign freelance sites where her name and background do not match her FindPlace.xyz bio.

FindPlace.xyz did not respond to Ars' request to connect with Washington or provide comment.

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Hunter Biden trial: Why his gun case hinges on one fateful day when he wasn't using drugs

Hunter Biden’s addiction to crack cocaine was so bad, he recalled, that he alienated his children and his famous father despite their repeated attempts to help.

It was so bad that he lived among a pool of sleazy hangers-on in grimy hotel rooms on two coasts, prowling camps of homeless people for drugs at night.

It was so bad that he left his laptop at a Delaware repair shop and never came back for it until, in the heat of the 2020 presidential campaign, a worker passed the private contents of its hard drive, including explicit images and videos, to former President Donald Trump's campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani . Those would later be displayed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene , R-Ga.

“I’m… an alcoholic and a drug addict,” Hunter Biden says in the prologue to his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” written following four years of extreme drug abuse. Writing in USA TODAY last December, Biden, 54, decried the “ weaponization of my addiction by partisan and craven factions.”

Today, Biden refers to himself as an addict in recovery. But there was a moment in 2018 when Biden was not an addict, his lawyers say. It was on Oct. 12, when he purchased a Colt .38 Special revolver and checked “No” on a federal gun form that asked: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

On Monday, the president’s son goes on trial at a federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, over charges he lied on that paperwork. Hunter Biden faces a maximum sentence of 25 years, if convicted. The case will hinge in part on whether Biden was legally addicted when he bought the gun – and which definition of the term might prevail with the judge and jury.

More: Hunter Biden: I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me.

Substance abuse professionals – and the law itself – appear split over whether Biden was indeed an addict when he bought that revolver in 2018 and over the evolving meaning of addiction.

The trial comes as Biden, who has never held elected or public office, once again finds himself at the center of a momentous presidential campaign and as a monthslong Republican move to impeach President Joe Biden has fizzled in the House .

In and out of rehab

In the fall of 2018, Hunter Biden moved back to the East Coast after months of despairing drug abuse in California. At one point that summer, his uncle, James Biden, had hauled him out of a hotel room and placed him in a rehab center before he moved in with a sobriety coach in the hills over Los Angeles. 

“It was great – the beauty, the peace, the support – right up until the moment I relapsed,” he writes in "Beautiful Things. “My lesson after a spring and summer of nonstop debauchery: no lesson at all.” 

But it was during one of those periods of sobriety that Hunter Biden purchased the handgun and answered honestly on the federal paperwork, his lawyers say.

“At issue here is Mr. Biden’s understanding of the question,” his lawyer Abbe Lowell recently wrote the court. “Someone like Mr. Biden, who had just completed an 11-day rehabilitation program and lived with a sober companion after that, could surely believe he was not a present tense user or addict.”

Biden’s lawyers haven’t specified where and when the 11-day rehab took place, but they are emphatic that Biden could have reasonably considered himself sober as a result of it.

A 'treatment experience,' not 'treatment success'

Some addiction experts aren’t so sure.

“Eleven days is a treatment experience. It’s not a treatment success,” said Kevin McEneaney, a former top official at Phoenix House, speaking from 30 years of working with people with substance use disorders.

“It may technically be great for court,” he added. “It’s not accurate in the world of addiction treatment.”

“If he was clean 11 days, I would still be coaching him, ‘Hey, you’ve got a serious condition for the rest of your life,’" McEneaney said. "I wouldn’t consider him away from his addiction.”

“You could argue you are not currently dependent on any substance,” Maia Szalavitz, the author of several books on addiction, said of Biden’s stance. “I would not consider that honest at that stage. The problem is that the legal concept of addiction is ancient.”

Is addiction in the eye of the beholder? 

“There used to be a belief, ‘Once an addict, always an addict,’ “ said Peter Provet, CEO of Odyssey House, a New York drug treatment center. “It’s an old-school belief: Once you had that thing, it was always going to be there, that addictive vulnerability. That point of view may not always be correct.”

More: Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani over 'total annihilation' of privacy from release of laptop data

And the stigma of addiction remains even in sobriety, with discrimination in employment, professional licensing and social circles. “I stopped using drugs at 18 but I’ve been labeled an addict for the rest of my life,” McEneaney said. 

More: FBI informant indicted for lying about Joe and Hunter Biden alleged business dealings

If the professionals aren’t fully in agreement on when and for how long a person remains an "addict," neither is the law.

Biden is charged with violating a statute that is written in the present tense. It is illegal for anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted” to narcotics to possess a gun. 

But federal prosecutors want to define Biden’s addiction using a much broader Treasury Department definition, which considers a person “an unlawful current user of a controlled substance” if there is “a pattern of use or possession that reasonably covers the present time,” including a failed drug test in the past year. 

Biden’s lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika to keep the damaging Treasury definition away from the jury. Noreika's proposed jury instructions, released publicly on Saturday, steer clear of defining addiction. Both sides have until Monday morning to object to her instructions.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Jurors are likely to see plenty of evidence of the famous defendant’s use of cocaine – including some exhibits with inconvenient dates.

Justice Department special counsel David Weiss has pulled volumes of evidence of Biden’s drug use from both his memoir and his iCloud computer backup.

The exhibits include a message from Oct. 13, 2018 – one day after the gun buy – where Biden allegedly writes that he is “waiting for a drug dealer named Mookie,” and another from Oct. 14 in which he describes himself as “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”

More: Not a ‘deadbeat dad’: Mother of President Biden's seventh grandchild comes to Hunter's defense

Legally, the question of Biden’s sobriety may come down to his state of mind on the day he bought the pistol. His lawyers say he never loaded or used the weapon. On Oct. 23, Biden’s then-girlfriend Hallie Biden took the gun from his car and tossed it into a trash can outside a Delaware convenience store, where it was retrieved by a man harvesting empty cans and later by the police.

“It’s impossible to get well, no matter what the therapy, unless you commit to it absolutely,” Biden writes in “Beautiful Things.” “The Alcoholics Anonymous ‘Big Book’ – the substance abuse bible, written by group founder Bill Wilson – makes that clear: ‘Half measures availed us nothing.’”

“By this point in my life,” Biden says of those days in 2018, “I’d written the book on half measures.”

From 'Where's Hunter?' to a public life

In the end, it wasn’t AA or therapy with the psychoactive root ibogaine, or the psychedelic compound 5-MeO-DMT, taken from the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad, or the antidepressant ketamine that Biden ultimately found most helpful.

After four years in hell, Biden writes, in May 2019, he fell hard for Melissa Cohen, a South African woman with eyes that matched those of his late brother, Beau. She seized his electronics, flushed his drugs and kept at bay a coterie of toxic hangers-on.

After years of addiction Biden says, he found sobriety − and a new wife − in seven days.

After being hunted by Trump and his followers, his privacy destroyed by the leaking of the laptop's contents, Biden is again a public figure. Where Trump once roared "Where's Hunter?" at 2020 reelection rallies, the president's son is often seen at his father's side and at White House events.

More: Hunter Biden denies Joe Biden involved in family business: 'Destructive political charade'

More challenges remain. In addition to the federal gun trial, Hunter Biden faces federal charges in California over failure to pay $1.4 million in taxes , which he later paid to the government. The gun and tax charges both stem from a failed plea agreement between Biden and federal prosecutors that collapsed last summer. A trial in the tax case is set to begin Sept. 5 in Los Angeles, just before Joe Biden and Trump are scheduled for a debate.

Hunter Biden is also in the middle of a fractious multimillion-dollar alimony case with his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, who is expected to testify for the prosecution at the gun trial.

While Biden sometimes uses the language of the recovery moment to describe his addiction, he doesn’t write about his own recovery using those terms.

“He does not see himself in the 12-step lens. He attributes his recovery to falling in love,” author Szalavitz says. “That is a valid way of recovering.”