Blinkist – “Read” a book in 15 minutes (or less).

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What is Blinkist?

Is it really possible to read a whole book in 15 minutes? Well… technically it’s impossible! Especially if we are talking about a non-fiction book. What kind of knowledge can be passed to a reader in such a small amount of time? Even the smallest book by the fastest reader will require a few hours supposedly. Moreover, the average reader reads about 1 page every 2 minutes. This means that in 15 minutes, one can read roughly about 7 pages; that’s hardly the prologue. With such busy lives, reading a whole book looks like a daunting task for most of us. Nevertheless, the folks at Blinkist didn’t lose confidence and tried to tackle this technically impossible challenge. They found success in the best alternative solution: Book Summaries.

Blinkist is a book summary service in which users can get access to a huge library of non-fiction books. Currently, there are more than 5,500 books in a wide range of topics. With 27 categories, users can explore almost any subject in any scientific domain. Some of those categories are: Economics, Marketing & Sales, Management & Leadership, Money & Investments, Psychology, Productivity, Philosophy, Creativity and many more. Founded in 2012 by four friends, Blinkist now helps more than 24 million users worldwide to learn new ideas and explore new topics.

The book summaries are available both in text and in audio format and you can get them either through the Blinkist website or through their application available for iOS and Android.

Subscription & Payment Options

Blinkist offers two kind of memberships for individuals: one is free and the other is paid. The paid subscription gives you access to the entire library and you have two payment options: One is on an annual basis at 79.99€ (which is 6.67 € per month) & the other is on a monthly subscription at 12.99 € per month. You also get an initial trial period of 7 days so you can try the service before you commit on any paid plan.

The free membership give you access to a free book summary every day. You cannot get to choose which book to read, this is predetermined by the Blinkist team. Once every week you get an email with the free books in the coming week so you know what you are going to read ahead of time.

For businesses, there are also two kind of memberships depending on organization size: The “team” which is suited to groups up to 50 people and the “enterprise” for more than 50 employees.

What I like

  • Great selection of books
  • Quite affordable, especially in the annual payment plan
  • Good written summaries. They distill the most important information.
  • In the summary end there is a recap, smart recommendations and further readings

What I would like to see being improved (or changed)

  • It would be great if there was an option to buy a “lifetime” license. 12min, another competing book summary service had once offered such a promotion through a 3rd party offers site (which -of coursed- I bought right away).
  • In the “Free” member plan, I would like to be able to choose which book to read every day instead of the curated picks by Blinkist team.

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