We tried one of the top book summary apps for $48 and were surprised by how much we learned

Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

TL;DR: Headway is a mobile app that pulls insights from 2,000+ non-fiction books and turns them into insightful summaries, and a lifetime subscription is only $48 (regularly $299.95).

There are so many books I want to read and so little time to actually sit down and read them. Every week, I tell myself I’ll start the next one on my list, and every week, something else gets in the way. That’s why I decided to try something different. Headway is a mobile app that condenses popular non-fiction books into summaries with all the key insights. They have an extensive library featuring many of the books currently on my massive to-be-read pile, so I decided to give Headway Premium a try while lifetime subscriptions were on sale for $47.97.

What is Headway?

Headway gives you another way of learning from the books you don’t have time to read. It does that by pulling key ideas and insights from 2,000+ nonfiction titles and delivering them in 15-minute reads and audio summaries. It covers personal development, business, health, and other nonfiction categories, with new titles added monthly. Getting started was easy. After purchase, I received an email with a redemption code, created a Headway account, entered the code, and was reading within a few minutes.

What are the book summaries like?

My only real concern going in was whether the summaries would flatten everything out, turning complex ideas into vague takeaways. That concern didn’t survive the first summary, which was made from How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes.

When I think of summaries, I think of a quick paragraph, maybe a bulleted list. What you get from Headway is much more robust. Each summary starts with a breakdown of what you’ll learn, which is both really useful to get an idea of the content and helped me decide which summaries I wanted to read. From there, you get a condensed set of the key points from each book, written out in approachable, direct language that’s very easy to get through on a lunch break.

The audio format is where Headway fully clicked for me. Professional voice actors narrate each summary, and the production quality is close enough to a polished podcast that it genuinely doesn’t feel like a compromise. I started working it into my morning routine and found I could get through two or three a day without changing my patterns. Playback speed is adjustable when you want to move faster, and you can switch between audio and text at any point, or run both simultaneously.

The summaries aren’t a substitute for reading the full book, and they’re not trying to be. What I liked is that now I know quite a few books I’d like to read in full and some that I can give away unread.

What can you do with Headway?

Headway goes considerably deeper than a straight book summary app. Personalized learning plans let you select a goal and work through relevant content in a structured sequence rather than just browsing. I quite liked that they will email you summary recommendations, so I could often seamlessly switch from work mode to learning mode.

I’ve always been someone who likes school, and Headway has actually started filling that void in my life. The Quizzes and trivia questions help reinforce what you’ve read, and spaced repetition tools and flashcard features are there for anyone serious about retaining what they’ve learned. There’s also a browser version if you need it, though navigation is not quite as polished as it is on the mobile app.

Does Headway actually help you learn?

I was pretty skeptical, but I’m impressed by how much I got out of using Headway in just a short time. It’s not just about the content I was learning. The fact that I was constantly reading, thinking about new topics, and making connections has left me feeling like my brain is running a little faster. The content is interesting. The investment is small, and it’s absolutely worth it to give Headway a try, particularly if you can get it on sale like I did.

Right now, Headway has a lifetime subscription on sale for $47.97 (regularly $299.95).

That price will last through May 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Buy from: Cult of Mac Deals

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