My sister and I agree on lots of things, but what to read isn’t one of them. Her reading voracity could outsize Oprah’s, and she’s the go-to for anyone looking for a fun piece of escapist fiction.
Me, I’m a girl who likes reading non-fiction. At any given time I’m nursing a book about sleep, productivity, business, eastern religion, psychology, design, or the human brain (Carley Trivia: I wanted to be a neurologist when I was in high school #pathdefinitelynottaken)… if my highlighter isn’t running out of ink then it’s not worth reading.
The only thing that gets in my way? Time. As in, it’s tough to get through a 350-page book when you can only read for 10 minutes before you pass out each night. So when I found Blinkist, it was like they made it for me: it’s an app that boils nonfiction titles down into digests you can read (or listen to)—and feel well-versed on—in 15 minutes or less.
How Blinkist Works
Available for both iOS and Android users, Blinkist is a subscription-based app that immediately unlocks more than 2000 nonfiction books and edits them into well-written “blinks” (their word for digests) that take mere minutes to read. This makes it a breeze to tackle topics ranging from psychology to personal growth and self-improvement, leadership and many more. To start, you just have to download the app, then use the app for free and get one “blink” per day. Upgrading to a paid plan unlocks 2,000+ titles for $49.99/year, and if you want audio versions you’ll have to splurge for their “Premium” plan at $79.99/year.
To me, the coolest part about Blinkist is that, for the cost of about six Gretchen Rubin books, it gives you the opportunity to discover topics you had no idea you were interested in. And, when you have a bit of down time, instead of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Facebook, you can brush up on said topic—delve into Peter Wohlleben’s The Inner Life of Animals, or read Chernow’s new take on Ulysses S. Grant (likely won’t be inspiration for a new hip hop musical, but who knows!). Also I’m dying to read The River of Conciousness by Dr. Oliver Saks… he has always been my hero, and thinking about reading this book, released after his death, is making me weepy already.
The bottom line is that you get the gist of the book in a cleverly written and well-packaged way so that you can get up to speed instead of beating yourself up when you don’t have the bandwidth to read the title from cover to cover.
Other app features include curated reading lists from the Blinkist editorial teams so you can discover topics that might not be in the mainstream and summaries that are not only accurate, but written by an intelligent team of writers who have a passion for breaking down complex subjects.
What are you reading these days? Are you on Team Fiction or Team Non-Fiction? Let me know in the comments.
