Monday Morning Wake Up Call

~ Live & Learn

There are many reasons not to read a book. One, because you don’t want to. Two, because you started reading, crawled to page 17, and gave up. Three, because the idea of reading never crosses your mind. (If so, lucky you. That way contentment lies.) Four, because it’s Friday… Five, because reading a book is, you know so lame. Only losers do it. And, six, because you simply don’t have the time. But what if the need to read won’t go away.

The most potent enemy of reading, it goes without saying, is the small, flat box that you carry in your pocket. In terms of addictive properties, it might as well be stuffed with meth. There’s no point in grinding through a whole book—a chewy bunch of words arranged into a narrative or, heaven preserve us, an argument—when you can pick up your iPhone, touch the Times app, skip the news and commentary, head straight to Wordle, and give yourself an instant hit of euphoria and pride by taking just three guesses to reach a triumphant guano.

This is where Blinkist comes in. Blinkist is an app. If I had to summarize what it does, I would say that it summarizes like crazy. It takes an existing book and crunches it down to a series of what are called Blinks. On average, these amount to around two thousand words…

Once you are Blinked in, your days will follow a new pattern. Instead of being woken by an alarm, or by a bored spaniel licking your face, you will find yourself greeted by a Daily Blink. This will arrive, with a ping, on your phone, alerting you to a book that, suitably pruned, is ready to be served up for your personal edification…

It’s easy to decry this stripping down of complex reasoning, as if the app were bent solely on decluttering books of everything that lends them vitality. Yet you have to admit: if you’d never read Pinker or James, Blinkist would furnish you with a basic grasp of their intent—sufficient, perhaps, to do more than merely drop their names. If the topics that Pinker addresses happened to crop up in conversation (“Everything is so crappy nowadays, worse than it’s ever been”), you could just about hold your own, at least over a cup of coffee. (“Well, there’s this guy, Pink-somebody, who says that infant mortality is way down.”) Is that what books are coming to, a handy social lubricant? Should you care if literature gets Blinked away, like an eyelash? […]

Such, to my dazzled eyes, is the crowning glory of Blinkist. Its high-tech alchemy, transmuting literature into business, turns the inhabitants of literature, even the ones with tattered wings, into businessmen. Listen, rapt, as the devils crunch the numbers and kick around ideas for going forward:

Moloch suggests open warfare against heaven. Belial advocates for doing nothing. Mammon argues for making hell a little nicer so they can all live a happy life of sin.

I’m with Mammon, all day long. Life is short, and so, if you look at your phone, is literature. Blink and you’ll miss it. 

— Anthony Lane, from “Can You Read A Book in a Quarter of an Hour? Phone apps now offer to boil down entire books into micro-synopses. What they leave out can be revealing. (The New Yorker, May 20, 2024)

43 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake Up Call”

  2. Good morning Dave – yes, yes, yes!!! It’s a bit early for my rant – but this is exactly what I fear about AI – it’s ease, the way to wave good bye to complex challenges – or worse, easy ones – and kill off brain cells with a couple of key strokes. I get it, sort of – there’s something to be said for Beowulf distilled.
    But we don’t acknowledge that we are a species that love all that is shiny and new, and don’t recognize that some of this stuff does’t necessarily augur well. I’m a Kindle user which travels with me, and consider a trip to Barnes and Noble a treat for the senses. Summaries are great for Kafka and Joyce, but the time I spend with my nose in a book is sacred. Needless to say, I have a lot of sacred moments. 🥴

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  3. WMS. I, too, am quite unsettled by AI and all that it portends. ‘Encountering’ a book through a 2,000-word summary and thinking you have ‘read’ it is like going on a floating river experience in Disneyworld and then claiming you’ve experienced the Amazon. Apples and oranges. Some things are meant to be savored. 😉

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          9. I try to read most of the comments… I don’t succeed, but I try 🙂

            By the way, we need to find another neutral location (not Switzerland) when you (with good reason) scold me for sitting on the fence Dave. I will let you pick!

            Switzerland cannot be used any more for two very important reasons:

            1) Kiki lives there and she rocks!
            2) I am a diehard tennis fan, and the best player ever to have stepped on a tennis court… Is from Switzerland (Roger Federer). No one moves on a tennis court like Roger did. He looked like he was floating on the court… Effortless… Like ballet. Absolutely amazing talent. On top of that, he is a wonderful human being for many many reasons.

            So you need to come up with another neutral location… North Korea maybe? Lol.

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  4. Hi Dave
    to read the original book is the real thing. With the abbreviations you might get the plot but miss out on the style.
    Wishing you a happy week
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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      1. One thing I failed at miserably was asking to wrote a summary of a book. It was common practice in English classes. I never understood the purpose and I don’t think it’s doable.
        Also, social lubricant?
        The awkwardness of needing something to talk about in a gathering, if they need social lubricant then this social gathering shouldn’t be taking place.

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  8. Well, I’ve never used an app on a cell phone…I’m old school…My cell is turned off…

    I try to check it once a week, some weeks that doesn’t happen. A nice lady from the southern USA showed me how to take a photo (while at the beach) – I took one and that was last Sept. or Oct – I doubt I remember how to take another one.

    Your introduction to Blinkist: Blinkist reminds me of “Cliff Notes” Years ago our student said oh, I need to go to the library I have a report due tomorrow -so I need the book…it was 7:50pm I said the library closes in 10 minutes…so either suffer the embarrassment of not doing your homework or I will pull up “Cliff Notes” on the computer for you…and you can learn all about the book you were suppose to read…she read the overview & a bit more and made the turn in deadline. (Middle School)

    We’ve listened to Books on tape a few time in the car while on vacation…the CD player is jammed so that’s know out…(one of the cars has a cassette tape deck)+ we haven’t been on vacation…the last time we traveled was April 2016 for my MIL’s Funeral… we did go two nights to the beach which is 55 miles away.

    My husband reads to me out loud when he finds something he thinks I’d want to hear- he’s correct (mostly historical literature) though Jack Kerouac was read out loud and Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States by Peter Jordan << that was an education… I read out loud to him, as well – at times other members of the family enjoy listening…Slow Life Is Good

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