As a full practitioner in escapism, I admit I’m not much of a non-fiction reader. I enjoy learning about history, religion, and the effect the two combined have had on the human condition – that is limitlessly interesting to me. But as far as self-help, biographies, the endless topics of government and war stories go…not so much.
Then I discovered Blinkist.
This phone app gives you access to thousands of non-fiction titles in small, 10-30 minute bite-size pieces. Spark notes for the modern age. You can read the text, which is separated into blinks. Blinks are separated chapters or topics that split up the ideas and the themes of the book. You can download them for local access on your phone. There are also podcasts and full audiobooks available.
I signed up for the trial, and as the majority of my trials go, it turned into a year subscription because I forgot to cancel it. The funny thing is, I started to listen to them. I don’t listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I like to read. I have a hard time listening to people talk at me. But the Blinkist app did help me. I “read” 6 non-fiction books yesterday. I have to think, is this beneficial at all? Can you get the knowledge of a book in a 15-minute jumble? Well, no, but for someone like me, who would never have read these titles otherwise, it’s a heck of a way to ingest basic ideas and topics in the non-fiction genre. One of the books I also ordered, as I liked the themes and ideas that the app gave me that I wanted to delve deeper into the topic.
I’d like to hear your ideas on this. Have you tried Blinkist, or is it something you would use?
Killian Levy Writes 