My new favourite app sends me random round-ups of passages I’ve enjoyed. It’s the perfect marriage of art and science
There are many apps I find fascinating. I have one that tells me what kind of plane it is I’m seeing in the sky and where it’s going. Another spares me the need to ponder where the ship I’m looking at is heading. Why, there was one I watched slide out of the Bristol Channel passing Gower last week that turned out to be on its way to Murmansk. What’s not to love? And then there’s the app that identifies every plant, tree or weed I point my phone at. Brilliant.
Now I’ve come across something that is so useful, I am filled with something like panic that I’ve never had it before. It’s called Readwise. It syncs with my e-reader and helps itself to every passage that I’ve liked enough to highlight. Then, every day, it emails me a random five of those short passages. Here’s one just in, from A Piece of My Heart by Richard Ford: “Mrs Lamb sat forward, unjacked the headset, and let the radio lash forth a fierce voice speaking Spanish at a terrible rate.” This made me laugh out loud the first time, and it’s a delight to see it again, even though it does come to mind every time I hear anyone speaking Spanish at what invariably sounds like a “terrible” rate.
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