Condensed, or just dense? App that reduces classics into 15 min reads

[carolinacutt]

Saw an advert for the app Blinkist which aims to help users read non-fiction books in 10 to 20 minutes.
I was shocked. Are people really too lazy to read and learn the details and beauty of classic non-fiction?
There clearly is a demand for it but does this highlight how society has changed and we're now living in a "I want it now" age?

www.blinkist.com/

What sort of classic non-fiction do you have in mind? A lot of the self-help sort of variety is extremely repetitive and could probably be condensed without too much being lost.

That said, I don't really know what they have on there.

I saw an ad for that and was actually quite interested in downloading it.

I read many, many non-fiction books and thought it would be a good way of getting up to speed with the core principles of a book to decide whether or not to buy it.

I think all kinds of people will buy it for different reasons and your hypothesis about why and what is means about society are not necessarily accurate.

Hardly an endictment of modern living when Reader's Digest has been doing "condensed" books since 1950. Cliff's Notes and Letts also started in the 50s. There are many others as "study guides" but it's basically the same thing. Wikipedia has precis of novels, IMDB of movies and TV series.

So no, it's not special.

There are book references that are used in real life where I'm interested in knowing vaguely what the book is about but not spend time reading it. For example War and Peace is supposed to be a massive slog but I'm curious what it's about. Love story? Adventure? Politics? No idea.

Surely it's better than watching the movie and assuming that it's the same as the book?