Brain Food Fridays Number 57: Should You Subscribe to Book Summary Services?

Dear Reader,

Should You Subscribe to Book Summary Services?

People often wonder if they should subscribe to book summary services like Blinkist, GetAbstract, readitfor.me, 12min and so on. I say ‘Yes’ with a caveat. Book summaries are great. However, I don’t recommend that you use them as a substitute for reading the book. Instead, use them as a complement.

In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren say there are three reasons for reading a book.

Information.
Further your knowledge.
Entertainment.

The way you read a book depends on why you’re reading the book in the first place. Your purpose for reading may not fully align with the book summary. And the summary may not answer the specific questions you have of the book. Summaries are useful because they give you the helicopter view of the book. So when you read the book, you have a place to hang the information.

Additionally, use book summaries as a guide to let you know if you really want to read a particular book. Another use is that they tell you which chapters and sections to focus on, so you can read selectively and strategically. And, when you read books, I don’t want you to stop there. I want you to pick out ideas and apply them at work. So you’re going one step further, and books summaries don’t do that for you.

These tips will help you to become a more effective reader.

The Invisible Mentor Blog

This week I profiled Maggie Lena Walker, who was the first female bank president in the United States. Why this is important is that she was African American, and she was born in 1867.

Maggie Lena Walker advocated for women’s economic empowerment. She also went into the schools to educate black children on the importance of savings, providing them with cardboard savings boxes.