Do you use book summaries instead of reading the book? 

It’s a question I get a lot. And I get it - there are so many books out there we want to read, but we don’t have enough time. Should we shortcut the process by reading summaries instead? Or subscribing to services that send you short summaries via email and audio? 

The answer is, it depends. 

It depends on what you’re trying to learn, and what you’re trying to accomplish. 

Before we get to that, it is important to point out one thing about the mindset in seeking out book summaries. There is a tendency on the part of some people to want more and more information. They are seeking out the most efficient way to digest as many information nuggets as they possibly can. 

It’s a tl;dr [too long; didn’t read] culture. We don’t want all the context, we want the bullet points. This is great when it comes to food recipes. The 2 pages of background information are often useless - we just need the recipe card at the bottom of the page. 

When it comes to learning, this is not a healthy approach. Think about your social media feeds. Say you follow 10 Muslim scholars across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Over the course of a normal day, you might digest 30-50 “Islamic” messages - quotes, motivational sayings, scrolling past a video, and so on. At the end of the day, it will feel like you consumed a lot of religious content. In reality, you only got a few superficial nuggets. They might have been motivational, they may have even been valuable. They may have even improved your life a little bit. But you did not actually learn something at a deeper level. After a year of doing this, the foundational level of knowledge you are at Islamically will not have changed if this is the only information you consume. 

Book summaries position themselves as a lifehack to learning. Get the key insights in 15 minutes or less. 

My take is that a summary should be a tool to aid in the learning, but it cannot replace the learning. So the usefulness of a summary depends on its purpose. To illustrate this, I’ll highlight the 4 ways I use book summaries. 

1. Filter

I’m the type of person to add books to my Amazon wishlist anytime someone recommends a book to me, I see a book referenced in an article I’m reading, or just hear about a book that looks interesting. And of course, there’s also all the books Amazon recommends to me that I might find interesting because of another book I bought. At one point in time, my wishlist of books had over 1,000 titles in it. 

It’s not possible to buy, borrow, or even read that many books. 

That’s where book summaries come in - and this is my primary way of utilizing summaries as a tool. The book summary will let me quickly gauge how valuable a particular book might be. I’m using it to see what the major insights are, how unique or valuable the information is, and if the material there contributes toward something I want to learn deeper. 

The summary helps to identify which books are worth reading and going deeper into, and which ones are not. Many times I will read a summary, and realize that particular book isn’t for me - so I delete it from my list and keep moving. 

Book summaries are filters to help you decide which books to read. 

2. Exposure

There are some topics that I may have an interest in but do not have the ability to go too deep. For example, I have an interest in marketing. I want to know enough about marketing to help me with projects I may be involved in. But I do not need or want to know marketing at a deep level. 

In this case, I will probably read a book or two on marketing. I may then supplement that baseline level of knowledge by grabbing additional insights from book summaries of other marketing books. 

In this case, I know that the summaries are not helping me build deep knowledge, they are helping me get additional information. 

The book summary exposes me to key concepts and ideas on a subject I want to know more about, but cannot dedicate a lot of time to. 

3. Reinforce

This is basically Cliffs Notes. Some books are packed with information and take-aways, and you know that you’ll need to revisit it in order to get full benefit. These are the types of books I seek out the summaries for to serve as an aid to make sure I understood the core concepts. 

Summaries can be used to signal to you what to look for while reading, or as a companion guide to help you as you go along. 

The summary reinforces what I learned from the book, and serves as a reference guide for key ideas. 

4. Deep Learning

There are some subjects where you are seeking deep understanding. This is the stage when you are going through books on a topic knowing that much the information is redundant, but you continue because you are seeking out even the most trivial pieces of information that you might not have already come across. 

As an example, this is our approach with the Qalam Khateeb Workshop project. In order to ensure the material taught in the curriculum is comprehensive, it requires continuously going through as much material as possible. 

In these cases, your learning is shaped not only by your reading, but also by personal practice, experiences, and most likely even teaching. 

When this is the goal, a book summary is not only not useful - but it may become a hindrance. In this stage of learning, a person is seeking more to discover new ideas, or make new connections to other ideas. A book summary can create a confirmation bias in a sense where you read only to look for those pre-defined insights. 

Book summaries should be avoided when you are in a deep learning phase (unless it’s needed after the fact to reinforce).

How do you utilize book summaries?