In The Guardian, John Crace's "Digested Read" is short, faster, and funnier

The undead of literature-the Reader's Digest Condensed Book- returns as an app. Left unanswered is the question: why?

Blinkist is an app that aims to solve a problem I thought only I had: It summarizes thick nonfiction books into digestible summaries that take 15 minutes to read, as opposed to days or weeks. 

It seems to know its audience, since I first saw it advertised in my Facebook feed. I have to read a lot of nonfiction books for my job. On top of that, other people want me to read the nonfiction books they’ve written for their jobs. My mail is an endless stream of books on how to be happy, or why you shouldn’t worry about being happy, or why the keys to both not worrying and happiness lie within your microbiome.
I want to read them all! I am making an effort. My nightstand groans under the weight of dozens of hardcovers, highlighters, kindle chargers, and post-it notes with the passwords to proprietary e-book galley websites. 

But my time, like all of humanity’s, is limited. The unread books beckon, but so do the unread New Yorkers and unread Washingtonians that are addressed to the person who lived in our apartment before us—and we should really go to some of these “100 Very Best Restaurants” sometime. Not to mention Pocket and Instapaper. (Plus, who am I kidding: Netflix.) It’s a never-ending Thanksgiving dinner of #content—so, so good, but way, way too much.