I loved the feeling of finishing a book and coming away with a new way to think about something. But with work and everything else competing for attention, I often struggled to make time for the books I wanted to explore. Also in my downtime, I wanted to do something productive instead of doom scrolling.

I tried summaries, too. Some were useful, but many felt so compressed that they lost the author’s reasoning. I’d get a handful of takeaways without understanding how the ideas connected or why the author reached those conclusions.

That’s what led me to build Distill: Book Summaries.

What Distill does

Distill is a reading-first app for people who want to explore more books, revisit ideas, or decide what to read next.

It offers carefully engineered book summaries designed to take about 10 minutes to read. The goal isn’t simply to make a book shorter. It’s to preserve the central argument, explain how the ideas fit together, and give readers a clear sense of what the author is saying, in just 10 minutes.
That is enough to fit into your mornings, your walks, or any of your free time.

Each summary also has a separate reflection section for thinking further about the ideas, and help you understand and process the ideas that you just consumed.

Distill is meant to complement reading the original—not replace it.

Why I’m approaching summaries this way

I think a good summary should do more than collect memorable quotes or list the most obvious lessons. It should help readers follow the author’s thinking and reasoning.

That means keeping the argument intact, making the connections between ideas clear, and resisting the urge to compress everything into a few generic points. It also means giving readers room to reflect, rather than treating every book as a checklist of things to apply.

I’m still developing the product and learning what readers find most useful.

I’d love your feedback

If you try Distill, I’d especially appreciate your thoughts on:

  • Do the summaries preserve enough of the author’s reasoning?
  • What makes a summary feel trustworthy and worth reading?
  • Is the reflection section useful, or does it interrupt the reading experience?
  • What would you want to see improved?

I’m the maker, and I’ll be following the discussion. Honest criticism is welcome.

Try Distill: https://www.distilllabs.app

You can start with *3 free distillations * every day, so you can explore the experience before deciding whether Premium is right for you. We've also worked hard to make Premium exceptionally affordable, with a one-time purchase instead of a recurring subscription. Our aim is to make high-quality reading and learning accessible without making it another expensive monthly commitment.

Aside: Also we are live on Peerlist right now, would love for you to check us out: https://peerlist.io/rushankhan2000/project/distill-book-summaries

This is our first public launch and we would love your support!