Amazon’s ‘Story So Far’ Feature Is Finally Rolling Out To Kindles

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Way back in September, Amazon announced a feature for Kindles designed to help you find a book in case you’ve lost the plot or simply taken a long break. But this week, Amazon finally started launching its “Story So Far” tool for Kindle devices and certain versions of the Kindle app.

Created as an extension of Kindle’s Recap feature, Story So Far is intended to serve as the literary equivalent of the “Privately on…” segments you sometimes get on weekly TV series. This will provide a summary of important characters and plot points so you can more easily pick up where you left off or simply get a little more context about what has happened in the book up to that point.

Amazon says Story So Far will be available to US customers across “thousands” of English titles, both purchased and borrowed books. That said, you may need to update your device to gain access. From there, you can see if a summary is available by looking at the Read Recap button, which pops up when you press and hold a specific book. Alternatively, if you already have a book open, you can view a recap of Story So Far by tapping on the three-dot menu in the upper right corner. Just be careful as some recaps may contain spoilers, although thankfully there are warnings when this happens.

Unfortunately for those on Android, it looks like Story So Far isn’t being added to that version of the app just yet. Also, not every Kindle is supported, so if you have an older device, chances are it won’t be able to access your hardware. And to make things a little more confusing, just because an ebook supports the extensive recap feature doesn’t mean it also supports The Story So Far.

That said, anyone who has written a book for a long time knows how hard it can be to get back into the action, especially when you may be a little unclear about what’s happening in the story. So as a tool to get people to revisit titles they’ve abandoned, Story So Far could be a good way to encourage people not to give up on their reading goals.