How to ‘read’ a novel in 10 minutes using summarising apps like Instaread

Last night, I read Nineteen Eighty-Four in nine minutes. According to the a website called howlongtoread.com, the average reader takes three hours and 56 minutes to finish George Orwell’s masterpiece – I managed it in around 4 per cent of that time.
Of course, I cheated. I “read” the “book” on an app called Instaread, which boldly promises to help you “get smarter in 15 minutes or less”.

This book-summarising service offers “key insights from bestsellers”, as well as articles from The New York Times Magazine and Harvard Business Review.

Open the app and you’ll be bombarded with motivational business books, but Instaread summarises fiction too. You can choose from 1,000 titles condensed into both audio summaries and blocks of text, meaning that in 10-minute snippets, you can “read” everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to Twilight.

Literary ‘Fomo’

According to research by Nielsen Book, 41 per cent of people began reading more during the first national lockdown, with the average time spent reading jumping from 3.5 hours a week to six.

But what if you’re among the 10 per cent of people who actually read less? What if you’ve missed out on the so-called best books of 2020 that you’ve seen rounded up in so many lists lately, or are intimidated by pictures friends have posted of the titles they read last year? Are summarising apps the solution, or does the mere thought of them send a shiver down your (well-thumbed paperback) spine?

Instaread, now three years old, is far from the only book-condensing app on the market – its co-founder and chief executive Rahul Chitrapu says its biggest competitor is Blinkist (which has over seven million users and claims to be “The app that CEOs love”).

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Blinkist focuses exclusively on non-fiction, meaning you can’t get snappy summaries such as, “He hates Big Brother and needs and outlet for his resentment” (Instaread’s take on Nineteen Eighty-Four), or “Then Edward gently kisses Bella’s neck, collarbone, and lips, proving to both her and himself that he can control his vampire impulses” (Twilight).

Chitrapu says the team takes anywhere from seven to 30 days to summarise a book, depending on how complex it is, and “inaccuracies are rare” due to rigorous fact-checking. Although Instaread isn’t always on top of the latest fiction, it has a catalogue of classics that many of us undoubtedly feel we should have read, especially after a year at home.

Plot omissions

As for what it’s like to use, listening to the summary of Nineteen Eighty-Four is a strange experience. Although I’m now 28, I feel like I’m a 15 year old cramming for a GCSE English literature exam. There are some small but significant omissions in the plot overview – there’s no mention of Winston’s fear of rats, making his eventual torture and betrayal of Julia seem anticlimactic and somewhat confused.

And Instaread’s Twilight summary misses out the fact that Edward Cullen sparkles in the sun, a blow to anyone who enjoyed pop culture discourse between 2005 and 2012.

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And it feels strange that there are no direct quotes used in Instaread summaries. However, its fiction summaries are advertised as “analysis” and books are divided into digestible sections such as “overview”, “main characters”, “themes” and “author’s style”.

This could be useful for anyone with an exam or dinner party up ahead, and Chitrapu argues that the app is “kind of like book review 2.0” – a way for people to “get a taste” of a book, and “understand what it is about so they can decide if they want to read it”.

No substitute

When asked what he’d say to critics who believe synopses cannot beat the real thing, he agrees. “

Books should be read in their entirety!” When you finish a summary on the app, it directs you to both “Mark as finished” and “Purchase the book to learn more”.

After Instareading Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, I don’t feel the need to read the whole book, even though when I find myself picking holes in his arguments, I can’t tell if I’m engaging with his work or the summary of it.

I definitely want to read more after finishing the summary of Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man – but only because I later realise Instaread missed out some of the wildest anecdotes (such as Donald Trump commenting on his niece’s breasts).

So, is there more to lose than there is to gain when it comes to these apps? It probably depends on your attitude to reading. Chitrapu says Instaread’s users are “motivated learners with a growth mindset” who tend to be over 25. In fairness, I’m only one of those things.

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