Even the most passionate and avid readers sometimes struggle to find time for reading, because… well, life.
You might have a jam-packed schedule, an infinite assigned reading list, or simply too many books you want to tackle at once.
Whatever your situation, good book summaries can provide a practical solution. They offer all the key info you need in a highly condensed version so you can decide if you want to read the full text, or save that time for books you’re truly excited about.
The good news is, there are plenty of free and paid options when it comes to getting high-quality book summaries. We’ve rounded up the best sites so you can spend more time reading and growing.
Free Book Summary Sites
The following sites allow free access to their libraries of insightful book summaries.
1. Four Minute Books
Niklas Göke founded Four Minute Books with a mission to help you get smarter “in four minutes or less.”
Nik and his team read the best nonfiction books and book summaries from Blinkist. They take all that information and compress it into 3 key takeaways, along with a short review of who the ideal reader for that particular book would be.
Sign up for their newsletter to get a weekly round-up with links to the newest summaries, or get the most recent summaries delivered straight to your inbox.
Reading has never been easier!
2. FightMediocrity
FightMediocrity is a YouTube channel that works with some of the best authors to create short, powerful book summaries.
They’ve created videos explaining the works of Dr. Joe Dispenza, James Clear, David Goggins, and many more top nonfiction authors.
The host often incorporates personal, relatable stories that make the summaries more memorable for audiences.
Check out this example of their video on Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
3. Nat Eliason
Nat Eliason’s book summaries, notes, and reviews offer concise, honest insights to some of the most popular nonfiction books. However, he also summarizes speeches, articles, and other things he’s read.
Unlike many other sites on this list, Nat doesn’t try to stay neutral, but provides his own personal (and sometimes brutally honest) opinions. He rates each work on a scale of 10 (and isn’t afraid to hand out 3’s, or even 1’s!).
Books are roughly categorized by topic and usually include short snippets from the original texts.
4. 12Min.com
12Min.com follows a format similar to that of Four Minute Books, but, as you can probably guess, the summaries are longer and explore some ideas in more depth.
There’s an audio version of each summary, and you’ll also get a list of key quotes from the original text. At the end of each summary is a critical review for a more personal touch.
Summaries of hundreds of titles are currently available, with new summaries added each week.
5. The Book Summary Club
Also like Four Minute Books, The Book Summary Club includes “3 Lessons Learned” for each of its selected readings.
Summaries often include embedded videos, pictures, and helpful notes from the author. Vince, the site’s founder, also adds his own personal touch (often with humor) to provide honest and relatable reviews.
6. Optimize.me
On Optimize.me, Brian Johnson offers videos showcasing “meta-summaries,” or summaries of a handful of books on a given topic so readers can get a condensed, comprehensive version of the literature.
You can enjoy free video summaries on Brian’s YouTube channel, but many of the site’s features are now paid.
Here’s an example, with Brian offering his take on James Nestor’s Breath:
Paid Book Summary Sites
These sites charge a fee for accessing their book summaries.
7. ReadinGraphics
ReadinGraphics mixes pictures, content, and data to capture the most important parts of a book in creative infographics.
The site selects the top business and personal development books, then recreates their key ideas in a way that can be digested in a fraction of the time.
Price: $19.97/month
8. Athena
Athena’s Reading Lists are curated from their library of celebrated books. Their summaries, which come in both audio and text formats, are concise and easy to understand.
The fact that summaries can be accessed in audio format means you can truly learn quickly, anywhere at anytime.
Examples of top categories include Leadership, Healthy Relationships, and Mental Health.
Price: $4.99/month
9. Blinkist
Blinkist is one of the original book summary services that offers subscribers condensed, easy-to-digest summaries of the best nonfiction books.
The Blinkist app is free to download and create an account. You’ll also get one summary, their “daily pick,” for free each day.
However, if you want to access all of their features and summaries (which include over 4,000 titles), you’ll need to upgrade to Blinkist Premium.
Premium Price: $12.99/month (or $6.67/month with an annual subscription)
10. Instaread
Instaread includes summaries for fiction and nonfiction books, which is one feature that sets it apart from most others on this list.
Subscribers get summaries of bestselling titles, which are available in 15-minute audio or text segments.
Price: $7.99/month
11. SumizeIt
Sumizeit is another popular book summary service. It offers 10-15 minute non-fiction book summaries in text, audio, and video format.
The app is free to download. You’ll get 5 free weekly picks.
However, if you want to access all of the features and summaries (which include over 1000 titles), you’ll need to upgrade to Sumizeit Premium
Price: $5.99/month (or $3.75/month with an annual subscription)
What Is the Website that Gives You Chapter Summaries?
SparkNotes is a popular site among high school and university students because it provides chapter by chapter summaries and analyses of some of the most famous works of literature.
Get clear, concise breakdowns of works such as Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, and Lord of the Flies in plain English, plus explanations of important themes and symbols from those texts.
Are Book Summaries Legal?
Generally speaking, summaries that include the summarizer’s own thoughts, interpretations, and ideas are considered fair use.
However, if the summarizer includes lots of direct quotes or copies chunks of the text verbatim, they may eventually find themselves in legal trouble, unless they obtained permission to reproduce the work.
How Do You Write a Summary of a Book?
Want to try your hand at writing a summary of your own? Check out our guide on how to summarize a novel, which includes tips for writing an effective logline.
To ensure that you stay out of legal hot water, review the basics of avoiding plagiarism so your summary highlights key information without violating any rules.
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- How to Summarize a Novel: 4 Steps to Writing a Great Summary
- How to Write a Reflection Paper in 5 Steps (plus Template and Sample Essay)
- How to Write a Literary Analysis: 6 Tips for the Perfect Essay
- How to Avoid Plagiarism: 6 Tips for Staying Out of Trouble
As a blog writer for TCK Publishing, Kaelyn loves crafting fun and helpful content for writers, readers, and creative minds alike. She has a degree in International Affairs with a minor in Italian Studies, but her true passion has always been writing. Working remotely allows her to do even more of the things she loves, like traveling, cooking, and spending time with her family.
Great info. Highly appreciated
As someone who has a website that also features a series of book summaries of some of my favorite non-fiction books, this resource is remarkably helpful. Thanks for sharing!
I really like your list! There were quite a few sites in there that I hadn’t heard of before.
There seems to be a trade-off between the number of summaries each site has and the quality/length of those summaries. Sites with thousands of summaries tend to have very short, superficial ones that are probably written by different people in a standardised format.
Some other sites are more personal, with far fewer summaries written by a single person. My website, ToSummarise.com falls very much into this category. I include quite comprehensive, detailed summaries and insert my own thoughts. I’ll often try to organise the author’s ideas into a different structure from the original book (especially if I think the original structure was not very clear). I am slowly building up my archive but I am going for quality over quantity, so it takes time to read and thoughtfully summarise a book :)
You can checkout http://www.HookmyBook.com as well
Thanks for the tip, we’ll check them out!
Which book summary company hires staff to read and summarize?
Hi Gigi, I’m pretty sure Blinkist does, and probably others from this list. You can check out their sites and look for a “jobs” or “careers” page.
Hey, I have a personal blog that focuses on book summaries that is weekly updated I hope you can include it in this list.
Thanks Muthuraja, we’ll take a look! :)
I also write summaries of the books I read. The main reason is to remember the content and go back to the main insights after I’m stuck in a situation.
That’s great, Ivaylo! Writing summaries and notes also helps me to better remember and process information too, especially for nonfiction
Great summary about book summaries.
Hope you found it helpful! :)
Which site or app would you say is good for fiction? Summaries of great mysteries, thrillers, etc.
Hi Jim, I would definitely recommend SparkNotes or also Instaread.