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Writer's pictureMatt Strain

AI for Readers - AI to re-start those abandoned books




We’ve all been there – heading out on vacation and wondering if you should pick up that half-read book you haven’t touched in six months.  If you’ve read this far, you can relate to the guilt and shame of that abandoned book. 


I had taken a six-month break from reading Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and the plot and characters were fuzzy.


ChatGPT to the rescue. I asked for a summary and analysis, but ONLY UP TO THE LAST CHAPTER I HAD READ. 


The prompts:

► “Act as an avid reader with magical abilities to summarize. I am restarting a book after many months and want a refresher so I can jump back in. Please give me a summary of what has happened up to chapter 7. The book is: The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.”

► “Act as a literary and race scholar. Tell me, a white man in his fifties, what I should understand to better understand the book's significance.”

► “How might the themes from the Invisible Man be relevant to the social, economic, and political issues facing society today?”

► I also asked ChatGPT to act as a black friend and share their perspective on the events in the book.  I further asked for perspectives based on gender, age, socio-economic status, and geography.  [AI can be very effective in suggestion points of view]

► “Can you give me three pithy motivational nudges to help me re-engage with this book. Base these statements on: - sarcasm - shame - an appeal to my better self”


Here are the prompts with the results from ChatGPT4

Happy reading! Hope this

helps you find completion with all those great unfinished books. 

❓In the comments, please share how you're using AI to enhance your reading❓


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