Hit your reading list goals before the new year with the Headway app
Headway condenses books into bite-sized summaries.
iOS / iPad iOS Free 7-day trial
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Keep adding more and more books to your reading list? I get it. It seems as if every week there’s a new must-read self-development book designed to turn your life around, kick off a load of new habits, and whip your mind and body into shape. But who has the time to sit down and read each one from cover to cover? The answer is no one and that’s why I recommend Headway.
Headway is an app that condenses the most popular non-fiction books around right now into easy-to-digest, bite-sized audio summaries. Think of it like the Cliffs Notes of every best-selling book you’ve wanted to learn from over the past few years.
As you might expect from an app packed with so much knowledge, it isn’t free. You do get a seven-day free trial to sample all of the delights of having a library of smart insights in your pocket, then there’s a $79.99/£79.99 yearly subscription. That might sound hefty, but if you rattle through tens of books during your week’s free trial, it works out at great value.
Bite-sized books
I know that some purists will be horrified by the thought of skimming through books, but if you’ll never get through them otherwise, I don’t see a problem.
Of course, you’re getting a condensed version of what’s on offer from your book of choice with Headway. Many of the summaries last only 15 minutes compared to the hours of narration you’d have to listen to, just so you can hear the full book. But you can still learn some valuable lessons or even go and buy the book if you want to take a deeper dive.
Although many of the books in the Headway app fall under the banner of self-development, you’ll also find other non-fiction genres, like history, business, spirituality, relationships, tech, biographies, and more.
To get started, you’ll need to answer a series of questions which informs the books that Headway recommends. These only took me five minutes to answer and they were well worth the time as my homepage was filled with a bunch of books I’ve been desperate to get my hands on for months now.
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If you want to make the most of the last few weeks of the year and start 2024 feeling motivated, then download Headway and take it for a spin to see if a 12-month subscription will be a worthy investment.
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Becca Caddy is a contributor to iMore, as well as a freelance journalist and author. She’s been writing about consumer tech and popular science for more than a decade, covering all kinds of topics, including why robots have eyes and whether we’ll experience the overview effect one day. She’s particularly interested in VR/AR, wearables, digital health, space tech and chatting to experts and academics about the future. She’s contributed to TechRadar, T3, Wired, New Scientist, The Guardian, Inverse and many more. Her first book, Screen Time, came out in January 2021 with Bonnier Books. She loves science-fiction, brutalist architecture, and spending too much time floating through space in virtual reality. Last time she checked, she still holds a Guinness World Record alongside iMore Editor in Chief Gerald Lynch for playing the largest game of Tetris ever made, too.