Reader's Digest: classic or dud?

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We had the large print version in my house.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

The box sets rule.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

the best medicine...indeed!

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.bidviews.com/stephenturriff/MVC-858S.JPG

― Annouschka (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember it as being rather right wing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to read it at my grandparents' house all the time when I was a kid since I had no cousins my age and so was generally left out of things or something. They thought I was reading it because I liked it, and not because I was bored to tears (this was after they had moved into the city from the farm) so they always gave me a subscription for Christmas.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was a kid I used to love those 'it pays to increase your word power' quizzes!

― C J (C J), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to read all the jokes out of it when I was at my grandparents' house.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

One of the best sections is "Drama in Real Life," in which a true tale of escape from death is related, usually accompanied by a lurid and hilarious illustration.

― Nemo (JND), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

it usually involved some angry northen mammal

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.scottrose.com/cougattack/page1link.jpg

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes! Or heavy machinery. Either way, very appealing to me when I was a ten-year-old boy spending some of the summer vacation at my grandmother's house (she had copies of Reader's Digest going back to the '50s).

― Nemo (JND), Monday, 10 November 2003 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

clssc

― lawrence ks, Monday, 10 November 2003 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I would read copies of it at my orthodontist's office. I tried forever to think of a joke that would fetch the $400 bounty that R.D. offered.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 10 November 2003 21:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I am Joe's < body part >

They did testicle once and referred to it as "man gland" in the title. Don't know if they ever did penis.

I used to like it when I was young because there was a lot of variety in the articles and they were pretty short.

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 10 November 2003 21:53 (twenty-two years ago)

mmmm.... potable quotables

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 10 November 2003 21:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Does anyone actually read the condensed books? All I see them used for is for cheep bookcase filler.

― fletrejet, Monday, 10 November 2003 22:28 (twenty-two years ago)

My grandparents own several shelves full of Condensed Books. I have never seen anyone actually read them, they just get dusted once in a while. When I was a child I grouped them in my mind along with Condensed Milk.

― sgs, Monday, 10 November 2003 22:35 (twenty-two years ago)

classic until it falls off the back of the toilet and into the bowl and becomes all stiff and water damaged, then, dud.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Monday, 10 November 2003 22:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Reader's Digest can go eat a bag of diseased nutz.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 November 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't you mean "diseased man glandz"?

― Nemo (JND), Monday, 10 November 2003 22:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I was trying to be concise in true RD fashion.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 November 2003 23:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Anything responsible for such a travesty as "condensed books" should surely be termed dud without debate?

― mouse, Monday, 10 November 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Dud. Dud dud dud dud duuuuuuud. Though informative if only to keep me up to date with what the Franklin Mint is up to these days (ans = commemorative plates featuring pictures of comedy dogs, or something)

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

They relieved insane boredom as a kid when we went on summer holidays as my grandparents beach house had ones from the early 1970s. I loved the crappy old ads and the disaster stories but thats about it.

We had the condensed books as well. I think I mightve read one, once. Or maybe not. I think they just went with the rest of the goddamn brown and orange furniture.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 02:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I love when one of the mian charactrs in Robert Anont Wilson's Shroedinger's Cat is talking about smoking mad hash and reading Reader's Digest in a perspective reprogramming experiment trying to put himeslf into the consciousness of a middle-American regular-Joe Reader's Digets reader.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 07:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember one of those Drama in Real Life stories was entitled "Help! My Baby's Down A Well!"

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 08:40 (twenty-two years ago)

ten years pass...

how is this still a thing?

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 21 October 2014 18:34 (twelve years ago)

five years pass...

Seems to have gone through a few changes?

https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/stephen-mallinder-records-that-changed-my-life

― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Saturday, 22 February 2020 13:57 (six years ago)

Hol' up, the UK version of Reader's Digest is -- dare I say it? -- kinda awesome? Like, I cannot even begin to imagine the US version of the magazine publishing articles such as this one:

https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/a-brief-introduction-to-industrial-music

― We Live as We Dee, Alone (deethelurker), Saturday, 22 February 2020 19:15 (six years ago)

It's definitely not how I remember it from the doctor's waiting room.

― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.), Saturday, 22 February 2020 19:19 (six years ago)

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