Reader's Digest a Great Investment, Even if You Just Read the Jokes

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.