Readers Digest Condensed Books
Jan. 25th, 2004 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susanstinsonWhen I commented the other day in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plee's journal about getting mustard on the pages of Readers Digest Condensed Books, tuliptoe said she thought that most of us who read as children read those books. She said it was like candy. I'm not sure whether that's true -- I've never heard anybody else bring it up -- but here's a passage from an unpublished essay of mine about reading. ( I was going to post the whole thing, but think it's too long for lj.)
Did anybody else devour those things?
My parents subscribed to Readers Digest Condensed Books. The whole set made a handsome showing on a high shelf in the dining room. I would stand on a chair to dust them, running my finger down their broad spines. There were five books to a volume, and I read my favorites over and over: the Mrs. Pollifax series, anything by Rumer Godden or Dick Francis. Victoria Holt was only good the first time around (I remember the surprise I felt when it dawned on me that the plot of one of her historical romances was strikingly similar to the last one I had read.) Still, very little seemed stale; I was young. I poured over the illustrations and the brief interview with the author at the back of each book before I went on to the next, untroubled by the vague knowledge that the books had been shortened. School and frequent trips to the library helped me get past the limitations of the Readers Digest selections, but the thought of those thick books radiates pleasure beyond reason to me to this day. Fiction became a companion of my inner and outer worlds, a river of empathy, entertainment and reflection that has lapped over me all my life.
plee's journal about getting mustard on the pages of Readers Digest Condensed Books, tuliptoe said she thought that most of us who read as children read those books. She said it was like candy. I'm not sure whether that's true -- I've never heard anybody else bring it up -- but here's a passage from an unpublished essay of mine about reading. ( I was going to post the whole thing, but think it's too long for lj.) Did anybody else devour those things?
My parents subscribed to Readers Digest Condensed Books. The whole set made a handsome showing on a high shelf in the dining room. I would stand on a chair to dust them, running my finger down their broad spines. There were five books to a volume, and I read my favorites over and over: the Mrs. Pollifax series, anything by Rumer Godden or Dick Francis. Victoria Holt was only good the first time around (I remember the surprise I felt when it dawned on me that the plot of one of her historical romances was strikingly similar to the last one I had read.) Still, very little seemed stale; I was young. I poured over the illustrations and the brief interview with the author at the back of each book before I went on to the next, untroubled by the vague knowledge that the books had been shortened. School and frequent trips to the library helped me get past the limitations of the Readers Digest selections, but the thought of those thick books radiates pleasure beyond reason to me to this day. Fiction became a companion of my inner and outer worlds, a river of empathy, entertainment and reflection that has lapped over me all my life.
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Laggard
Date: 2004-01-25 07:15 pm (UTC)I've been picking up the Dick Francis books lately when I hit the local English-language used bookshop to see what all the fuss is about, but scanning the back covers/openings, they haven't quite grabbed me and I've put them back. And I like things horsey, having grown up on a horse farm (morgans and paso finos) and having played polo in college and what-all... Is there one you'd recommend in particular, or are they all more or less cut from the same cloth and either they appeal or not?
Re: Laggard
Date: 2004-01-25 11:59 pm (UTC)I so so so loved Mrs. Pollifax when I was a kid -- at least in part because she was plump and unexpected and adventurous -- too bad that it was all for the CIA.
I bet Rumer Godden wrote a bunch of books, yes?