Blinkist is a service that provides 15 minute non-fiction book summaries, both in text and audio form. They have over 1000 books, and I have gone through their catalog and they have a lot of books I felt were interesting (including several that I bought years ago and never got around to reading).
I got the Premium version from AppSumo, which was in a sale for US$20 for the first year. It includes audio books, syncing with Evernote (which I didn't try was it wasn't clear to me what access they get), and sending books to Kindle. Usually it US$79, which I'm not sure is worth it.
At US$20, however, I have rather liked it. I tried a book I read before (an Elon Musk biography) and while the summary naturally didn't have the depth or enjoyment of the book, it did cover most major points – and took me well under the 15 minutes to read.
Personally, I read several dozen books a year, but there is always a huge list of books on my to-read list.
I have tried their apps on the web, iPad and Android. The apps worked well on all platforms, and include highlighting and sync. The only problem I noticed is that on the iPad, the books I added to my library on their site didn't show up. On Android this worked fine. I read several books(4), which all had some useful insights, and heard a couple of audio books on the treadmill. I felt that the audio was very clear and the voice was pleasant.
I noticed that my reading time, even using highlighting, is well below the quoted minutes time (I used to read at 600WPM, although I haven't tested lately).
Overall, the service seems pretty useful, and is worth looking into – specially if you don't have to time read as many books as you want. They also a free trial.
PS: I don't get paid if you use the link on the review box (the More Details button) , but I do get 7 extra days of service.
