Generating book summaries

Wouldn’t it be nice to pull out the key ideas and action points from a book you have just read or are considering purchasing? Maybe get a reminder of the story line of a fiction book you read years ago?

I have shelves of books and hundreds of Kindle books. I can barely remember any of the story lines or key points from any of them.

If I am reading a non-fiction book I make lots of Kindle highlights or may make notes of the odd idea on a index card I use as a bookmark. Yes, I can read them later but it is difficult to build a coherent view of the main points of the book.

I have been playing around with generating AI book summaries for the books I have read.

I am currently using this prompt:

Repeatedly ask the user for an ISBN or a book title with author.

For each response, if it is a non-fiction book then generate a book summary including takeaway action points or if it is a fiction book then generate a summary of the story line.

Ask the user again for the next book details.

I am slowly building up a set of summaries of all the main books on my shelf in the study. I have also used it to build a view on whether I should purchase a specific book.