Reader's Digest

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Reader's Digest Association Inc, whose namesake magazine has been a staple of dentists' offices for generations, said on Monday (August 11) it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its U.S. businesses as part of a prearranged plan with lenders to cut debt by 75 percent.

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I first read about this in the local newspaper, and it made me sad. The magazine will still continue to be published, but bankruptcy is still bankruptcy.

Reader’s Digest was a part of growing up, it was something that was always there, it was familiar and comfortable. My father, who is a big fan, subscribed to the magazine for a very long time. If you do some digging in our house you might still find some editions from the 80s and 90s. I can proudly say Reader’s Digest was one of the factors that fuelled my love for reading. I loved reading the short articles, the jokes, the book sections, I even ordered a few of their booklets, you know, where you had to give names and addresses of fourteen of your friends and in return they would send you a booklet. I entered in the Sweepstakes (never won anything though), ordered free books along with new subscriptions, and submitted my entries for Life’s Like That (though I never got published).

The arrival of a new issue was always an exciting event, and for the first few days it would get passed around a lot until everyone read it. I’d first read the jokes. Life’s Like That, All in a Day’s Work, Laughter, the Best Medicine, and the jokes you found at the bottom of the pages, kind of to fill up the space. Then I would read the short articles, where somebody would tell how they met their wives/husbands fifty years ago, about some incident in the night, about some event that changed their lives. One writer I particularly remember was Penny Porter, who lived in a farm with lots of animals. I loved her articles about her family, her children, their pets and the stray animals that wandered into their lives.

Then I would read Drama in Real Life. Being attacked by a grizzly while hiking in the woods, being trapped in a mine, a plane crash, attacked by a mad man etc etc. I would save the Book Section for the last; they were relatively lengthy and needed more time. The articles that bored me to tears were the health articles. Human nature, I guess, to stay away from something that is good for us and lean towards the bad. One of the reasons we stopped subscribing was the magazine was turning into a health magazine. It became boring. Plus a thousand other magazines came up, television came into our lives, and we discovered other books and other interests.

I still love reading old issues. I still buy old copies, old editions from the 60s, 70s and 80s. They were much more authentic, much truer and the people were not so fake. And I still buy the old condensed books.