Book Summary Question

[nealashley]

Hello All,

This is my first post on the forum. I love Steve's website and have learned more from it than most books I've read.

I would like some opinions on the following issue.

I love reading books and currently read about 2 books a week. I read primarily for marketing and business purposes along with some personal development books. I realize there are plenty of books I'll never get too simply due to time constraints. What do you all think about the book summary websites? For example, would an 5-8 page summary of a book that can be read in less than 10 minutes give me the essential parts of most books?

I'm thinking about joining a website called getabstract.com, but am not sure if it's worth the cost.

I would love to hear Steve's thoughts or anyone elses on book summaries. I could continue reading my 2 books a week as well as 5-10 summaries a week.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Neal Ashley

[Swede]

If I was to summarize Samuel Smiles's "Self Help" I could do it in a few words: trifth, minute attention, perserverance, honesty and being in an optimistic mood. I could also call it "the gospel of work".

However, this would not be enough to understand Smiles's conception on a deeper level. The question is: Do you always have to go beneath the surface? My opinion is that sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. It depends on your prior understanding of the subject and what you're looking to gain on your read.

I have combined the two principles: I carefully read a few chosen personal development books. Combined with that I read posts on forums like this and shorter articles/summaries.

[MadHyeNa]

Learn to PhotoRead...

[sakredkow]

My two cents: the only real benefit (and it might be substantial) to a summary site is getting a better idea whether the book seems worth buying and reading in its entirety. Good luck!