Best Places to Find Book Summaries
If you’re too busy to read every book on your list, look for a book summary, which condenses the main points of a book into easily digestible information. Book summaries benefit time-pressed entrepreneurs, busy managers, executives, students, and others.
What is a Summary of a Book?
When we say someone has taken the time to read a book and created a new product called a summary, we don’t mean plagiarism or a copycat trying to pass itself off as the original; rather, a book summary is its own new work u2014 but shorter and with credit to the original author.
1. GetAbstract
GetAbstract has the most comprehensive catalog, with over 20,000 summaries, as well as the ability to highlight specific items, such as a favorite idea or several sentences. Best for: Employees and managers in large corporations, as well as people with long reading lists and Kindle users.
2. Soundview
Soundview was one of the first companies to offer easy-to-read 8-page text and 20-minute audio summaries, and the Professional plan, which costs $199 per year, gives you access to 2,500 summaries, webinars, and newsletters.
3. Blinkist
Blinkist has a 3000-title library on topics ranging from entrepreneurship to parenting, with a premium subscription giving you unlimited access to all titles to read and listen to voice recordings. Best for: Auditory learners who want well-rounded access to a variety of non-fiction topics.
4. ReadItFor.Me
If you like the books, you can subscribe for $49 per month, or they can customize team access in your firm. ReaditForMe offers a schedule of classes three times per week around a book. Books include 36 leadership and soft skill competencies.
5. Summaries
Summaries.com condenses 300 pages of business books into eight pages, and it offers over 1,000 works, ranging from sales books to finance books, as well as a free plan with abbreviated 5-minute snapshots in blog posts.
6. Optimize
Optimize.me is a self-improvement resource website that provides subscribers with in-depth written summaries of self-help books as well as accompanying MP3 files. Best for: Those seeking deep insights to forge their place in the world.
7. Readingraphics
With Readingraphics’ non-fiction book graphics, “ideas come alive,” according to the company, which offers three formats: infographic summaries, written summaries, and 20-minute audio files, with pricing starting at $14.14 per month or $9.97 for a single book summary.
8. Instaread
Instaread has the feel of a high-brow MBA-style reading list, with over 1,000 books covering a wide range of topics such as politics, the arts, and fiction. Prices start at $7.49 per month, and a credit card is required to get a sneak peek.
9. FourMinuteBooks
FourMinuteBooks specializes in nonfiction books, with over 800 available, most of which are focused on self-improvement; the library of PDFs costs $99, and the library of 300 audiobooks costs $49. It also offers free book summaries in bundles.
10. BookSummaryClub
The BookSummaryClub appears to be an affiliate site; it’s a simple, easy-to-navigate website with books that startup entrepreneurs will enjoy; if you purchase a book summary there, the site may refer you to another site, such as Blinkist or Instaread.
Alternatives to Free Book Summaries
If you’re looking for a free book summary, these tools can help, and if you don’t want to pay for a service, you can use the free summaries provided by these sites.
11. Wikipedia
While we wouldn’t call them summaries, some Wikipedia website pages do a good job of explaining the topics, with the quality varying depending on the entry’s author.
12. Amazon Search Inside the Book
The Amazon preview feature can partially replace free book summaries; publishers decide how much of a book is viewable, but the default is 20%; it’s a quick way to see a portion of an author’s work and decide whether to buy books.
13. Book Reviews
Book reviews can help you decide whether or not to buy a book by describing the main topic and why you should read it. Check out our Business Book Reviews section for over 800 reviews of books written by world-renowned business leaders, authors, and publishers.
Why Read Book Summaries?
In the information age of the internet, book summaries address our shortened attention spans by allowing us to read more books in less time. People use book summaries to: Learn information faster and save time for other things. Sound knowledgeable in meetings and develop your team.
What Makes the Best Book Summaries?
Great book summaries are easy to scan and have a clear organization; for non-fiction books, the book summary provides an interpretation of the big ideas and main topics; and book summaries can be useful for marketing and millionaire books, among other things.
What is the Ideal Length of a Book Summary?
When reading summaries, focus on a quick reading experience. Some people want to read voraciously but have limited time blocks; a number of services specify how long their summaries take to consume; when reading summaries, focus on a quick reading experience.
What Formats Do Book Summaries Come In?
The best book services provide summaries in a variety of formats, including infographics, videos, and MP3 files, as well as in mobile apps that provide a book-by-book guide for reading on the go.
Summaries vs Study Guides: What is the Difference?
Study guides, such as Spark Notes, Cliff Notes, BookRags, and A-Plus Notes, are aimed primarily at students and aim to add value by providing analysis and study aids. Cliff Notes focus on classic literature such as Macbeth or educational topics such as biochemistry.
What is the little summary of a book called?
A book blurb (also known as a “back-cover blurb” or a “book description”) is a brief description of the main character and conflict in the book, usually between 100 and 200 words long, that is traditionally placed on the inside cover or back of the book.
What are summaries of books called?
A synopsis, or something similar, is used to outline the events of the entire book, so more than a few sentences is required.
What is the notes section in a book?
Notes. Notes can be formatted within the text of your book, as footnotes on the page where the note is needed, or as endnotes that appear after the text, and they typically add some relevant information to whatever you’re making a note about, but they’re typically tangential to the topic.
What are the notes at the back of a book called?
The back matter (also known as the “end matter”) of a book is, as the name implies, information found at the back of the book.
How do you describe a book cover?
A book cover is any protective covering used to bind the pages of a book together; the term “Bookcover” is frequently used in library management software for a book cover image.
What is the front and back of a book called?
The boards refer to the hard front and back covers of a book, which date back to when they were made of wood, and the endpapers or endsheets refer to the pages at the beginning and end of the book.
What is the best book to read?
The Best Books of All Time
- 1. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. 2. James Joyce’s Ulysses. 3. Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
- 4. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
- 5. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
- 6. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
- 7. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
Are book summaries good?
Summaries, presumably on an ideas-per-hour-invested basis, will win out over full books, as nobody will read even a fraction of all books, possibly not even a significant percentage of truly great books.
How is a summary written?
A summary begins with an introductory sentence that states the text’s title, author, and main point as you see it; a summary is written in your own words and only contains the original text’s ideas. Write a final sentence that “wraps” up your summary; often a simple rephrasing of the main point.
What are the 5 parts of a book?
Characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution are the five essential elements that keep the story moving along smoothly and allow the action to unfold in a logical manner that the reader can follow.
What’s the first page of a book called?
The first section of a book, called front matter (or preliminaries; shortened to “prelims”), is usually the shortest in terms of page count.
What is the 1st page of a book called?
The front matter of a book is the information that appears at the beginning of the book and contains the nuts and bolts of the book’s publication, such as the title, author, publisher, ISBN, and Library of Congress data. Front matter pages are usually not visibly numbered.
How do you write a first page of a book?
The first page of your book must include the following information:
- Introduce your narrator. This may seem obvious, but many manuscripts I’ve read in workshops spend a significant amount of time setting the scene of their story.
- Set the tone.
- Demonstrate your writing chops.
- Hint at the story to come.
What are the physical parts of a book called?
End Paper (or End Sheets): the interior end sheets, set between the covers and the printed pages of the text block. End Paper (or End Sheets): the interior end sheets, set between the covers and the printed pages of the text block.
What are the part of a book?
The front matter, which appears at the beginning of the book and includes the half title, frontispiece, and title page, is made up of three main parts: front matter, body matter, and end matter.