My family has subscribed to a number of magazines over the years,
particularly when my brothers and I were younger, but the one that we
have had in our house more than any other is Reader’s Digest. When we had to sell magazines in grade school, we always got special bonuses for each copy of Reader’s Digest
that we sold because those in charge of the fundraiser knew that was
one magazine people would be especially likely to buy. With an average
of about 200 pages, it’s well worth the newsstand price of three
dollars, and it’s book-like structure is more convenient than the larger
format of most magazines.
Certain features of the magazine change from time to time. I was disappointed when one of my favorite segments, Towards More Picturesque Speech, made its departure several years ago, but I love the additions of a letter to the editor section (You Said It) and an advice column (Ask Laskas).
The back cover of the magazine has undergone many transformations. The
current format is one of my favorites, featuring the specially
commissioned Norman Rockwell-esque paintings of C. F. Payne and entitled
Our America.
Some issues of Reader’s Digest
contain a certain theme that runs throughout the magazine. These have
ranged from humor to Christmas to the most recent issue’s America’s 100 Best,
highlighting the editors’ choices for the best America has to offer in a
variety of categories. I was particularly tickled to discover my own
hometown of Erie, PA, among the honorees; under the “Best Headline”
category, the Erie Times-News won for its beach-cleanup headline
“Little white butts litter beach,” five little words that caused quite a
stir when they leaped off the front page of our paper.
Whether or not an issue is unified by a particular topic, you can always
expect to find interesting articles on a variety of topics as well as
personal essays, at least one in-depth interview, and short bits of
information and humor. I’ve never read an issue of the magazine cover to
cover, but I always find longer items of interest to me. Some are
heartwarming or thought-provoking, others are strictly informative or
lend insight into the life of a famous figure. My parents and I don’t
always read the same articles, but there’s never an issue bare of
intriguing material.
My favorite parts of Reader’s Digest,
however, are generally the sections which appear in every issue and
don’t require more than a few minutes at a time to read. I love the
amusing anecdotes that appear at the end of articles and the larger
collections of these humorous stories in Life in These United States, Humor in Uniform, All in a Day’s Work, and Laughter, the Best Medicine.
It’s also fun to come up with my own submissions for the magazine, even
though I have sent several in with no success so far. With a potential
of $300 for an amusing anecdote, it’s worth a try! I also enjoy Quotable Quotes and the zany, Dave Barry-like ruminations of Mary Roach.
More substantive than many magazines on the market and containing a
relatively low number of the ads that plague the pages of so many
periodicals, Reader’s Digest is a good solid magazine that more than makes up for the three-dollar-a-month investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment