Today's post isn't so much about tech itself, but rather, business and books. I love to read. I read a lot. In fact, I read as much as I can get my hands on, both fiction and non-fiction. Both from a professional and personal perspective, reading provides me with different perspectives, different ideas to think about and often can be a source of inspiration for exploring new areas of interest.
As many people are, I find I'm often in a time crunch and there is never enough time to read everything. As well, with so many good (and some times not so good) book titles, it is hard to know what to read next. This is where Soundview Executive Book Summaries comes in for me. What does Soundview do? From their website:
"Receive 8-page text and 20-minute audio summaries of the top business books of the year in 8 digital formats, accessible anytime, anywhere in your Online Library on our website."
If you want further info, here is a link to a video that gives a good overview as well.
This is a great service that provides me with book summaries that I can download in a number of formats: PDF, MP3, Kindle, eBook, Blackberry (to name a few). As well, each month, they mail me a CD with audio summaries of three books. These are a good added feature as well as I am easily able to listen to them in the car. Beyond the summaries, they also do a good job of providing interesting extras, like author interviews. I find these particularly good as they provide added insight to a book.
So how do I use this service and the summaries? Are they replacing reading books for me? Not a chance! I use this service to augment my reading. Often, the "next" book that I'm going to read is a book in which the summary was rather engaging and I want to read/own the full text.
So if you are looking to tap into expanding what you read, but are time challenged, this is a good service to explore. The wide variety of formats they offer are fantastic as they can be consumed how you like on whatever device is your preference. The summaries themselves are well done, thoughtful and not simple "reviews" or overviews - the provide enough detail to give you the major aspects of the books they are summarizing.
You can find them at www.summary.com or follow them on Twitter via www.twitter.com/businessbooks
Happy reading!
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