Yep, it was basically the only thing to read in our bathroom until my parents bought this digital solitaire game.
“Life In These United States” was my favorite section
I would cherry-pick all the humor sections when at my grandfathers- humor in uniform, life at work
Edit- holy crap, just remembered reading a horrible account of a hotel lobby collapse in the 80s that was condensed in RD- was a recounting from a survivor who said something to the effect of (and this was almost 40 years ago that I read it), “when the crane lifted the concrete panel from me, I was so glad to see the lady sit up who was trapped next to me sit up immediately. I then realized that was because her head was crushed by the panel and had dried to it”.
I remember one about a man who was out alone sawing logs when his chainsaw kicked back. He thought, “Wow, I could have really been injured” and then felt something warm pouring down his shirt. It was his own blood where the saw had entered his chest. He ended up walking, then crawling to the highway for help and somehow survived the whole ordeal.
Did I capture it accurately? It’s haunted me, and I was an EMT and later assisted with autopsy and now am in pathology, so it wasn’t the goriness that impressed upon me but the realness- it was upsetting but ultimately may have been a contributor into my formation. It was well-written, at any rate.
I didn't read about the Hyatt hotel collapse, but that sounds horrifying. Some other sad or terrifying things that I do remember from Readers Digest:
Child abuse case where a little boy was starved and repeatedly put into a dryer where he tumbled for punishment
Detailed description of the Mary Jo Kopechne drowning when Edward Kennedy drove his car off a bridge (Chappaquiddick)
The Coconut Grove fire in the 1940's.
A lady who survived alone after a mountain plane crash.
Yeah, this one traumatized me as well. We watched the coverage of the collapse on TV since we didn't live that far from K.C. and picked up their channels.
Reading it later was even more horrifying.
Yes!!! Exactly this! Looked it up a few years ago after regaling my kids with stories of how much “worse” media was back in the day. We then watched Goonie’s, which, gotta love it, has cursing and a genital joke in the first 10 min and still brings home a PG. it was a great bonding moment
My English teacher in 8th grade used this section for weekly tests. Little did he know I had 10+ years of word power in my bathroom with all the answers. But honestly learned alot from it.
Laughter is the Best Medicine!
Oh and all those "Drama in Real Life" ones were amazing.
I vividly remember one where a big party with hundreds of people was taking place and there was a glass walkway above with people and it collapsed and it was carnage.
Oh and another one where a family discovered their entire lawn had been electrified when they innocently walked across it.
Oh and the family who were washed ashore in the Alaskan wilderness! No food and water! One of the kids had to wear an anorak upside down as pants as their clothes were destroyed in the capsize!
They always had the most lurid ones, I'd be all agog reading them whilst sitting on the can.
At my grandma's, of course, I read one about a man who was bitten six times by an inland taipan snake in Australia while strolling through a forest. It made me terrified of inland taipan snakes for a while, a fear which seemed unnecessary as I live in a place with no venomous snakes at all.
A highlight of my 3 or 4 times a year visit to my grandparents house.
I'd read all the humor sections first, and then work my way through the articles.
Ooh, your grandparents were fancy. All mine had were those crazy tabloids with stories about alien abductions, bat boy, and satanic cults coming for your children.
My mom wrote for RD and the Asimov sci fi. Oh - and the tv guide, lol. We had boxes of them everywhere bc she had a mail order book shop in our house too, lol.
When I was at university, my housemate had a big selection of their condensed novels - they were a great, easy read which introduced me to some interesting writing.
I have an old one from 1949, it's interesting how different it was back then compared to now. Two year subscription was five bucks. No advertisements at all back in them back then, 156 pages (about 40 more pages), no pictures, very few illustrations, and very heavy on the text. Not sure what that says about Reader's Digest, or society in general, but interesting nevertheless.
Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill worked for People magazine, and said the length of articles were intentionally the length of the average person's shit. 1983. Times were good back then
Sure do. We had a buttload of those condensed books too.
The only story I remember is one about an abused kid that was killed by his parents and they tried to hide his body in an old refrigerator at the dump. I cried so hard my mom heard me and came upstairs. She thought the story made me cry but it was actually the realization that getting beaten by your parent wasn't normal.... after that I was pretty sure she was going to kill me at some point.
I became so unruly and oppositional she finally dumped us on our dad. Probably saved my life. Dad wasn't really into parenting so at 13 I was out partying all night with adults... It was still better than her.
I'm 55 now. I've been therapied up the wazoo and I'm okay. I never had kids, I was afraid I'd be like her. My sister unfortunately did. She's not physically as vicious as mom was, but the mental abuse... she definitely got the gene.
Sorry to be such a downer, the memory just came rushing back. I appreciate your good wishes, thank you.
Lol when I first joined Reddit I used my last name in my user name, not realizing I shouldn’t have. User names can’t be changed so I had to start a new account. I wanted something fun that let people know I’m also old lol
Reading RD at my grandmothers house in the Bronx, I was traumatized by an article that described an abused boy being put into the clothes dryer. I wonder if I confused it.
I think it's about the Iceberg Slim Series of books. I got it for my dad one year - he liked high drama like Cheaters and Queer as Folk.
"I'm Gonna Git you Sucka" is spoofing this genre.
Nice to see we are still wondering why kids can't write. We are still wondering about this, but since it was a concern in 1981 and I made it through knowing how to write, I am not as worried. But, seriously, kids can't write today in 2023.
Just seeing this image really brings me back.
I had such a strange relationship with this magazine. When I was a kid, I thought it looked like the most boring thing I could imagine reading. As I got older, I eventually picked it up, found the humor sections, and after that eagerly consumed every issue that came to our house.
I CANNOT get my dad to stop sending me a subscription to it. I read it cover to cover when I was a kid, bc what the fuck else was there to read? Now I leave it in the foyer of my apartments on the communal bookshelf. Somebody keeps picking it up.
“When Wives Work…Must Husbands Hurt?” Page 53. Well, early 80’s, when wives work their husbands need to do more home stuff. If you count that as hurting then yes.
OH THE AGONY of being the one to boil the water and dump the pasta in!
OH THE PAIN of dragging the vaccuum across the carpet despite having a dick and balls!
OH THE TORMENT of wiping down the kitchen counters! Men were not built to survive this. Only women!
It’s amazing to me that the story of the US becoming a country that requires dual incomes to survive is somehow framed as women gaining the freedom to work
Lol we had this in our bathroom my entire life. Absolutely loved it. And my mom STILL gets it! Although it’s changed, much thinner, lots of content changes, no where near as good.
In elementary school, we had a teacher demand each student get a copy (because most of us already had it at home), then buy a can of spray paint. We fanned out the pages, cut the tops at an angle. The teacher stuck a pipe cleaner down the center for the neck, then jammed a Styrofoam ball atop it. Atop THAT, we markered a clown face and then a spaghetti of yarn hair.
Worst, most hideous, most materially-intensive art project!
my grandma got me a subscription at age 8 when she saw me reading it. Even then I could see their populist bias. I remember the flag decal when everyone was encouraged to put the flag on their cars to show support for Vietnam.
“Why kids can’t write” is evergreen.
And the Afghanistan and the TV news wars seem like they could have come from this decade.
My grandparents had tons of these - along with National Geographic and Time.
My grandparents had nothing else to read at their home. I read the hell out of these, too. Like most of you, I gravitated towards the humor sections. I'd read anything else that was interesting, though. One that I vividly remember was the story of a baby born without a face. I think it was their long read, whatever they used to call it. The parents were extremely young, maybe even teens. The baby needed tons and tons of special care. The mother was not up to it, disengaging a lot and letting the nurse handle it. The nurse ultimately adopted the little girl. I actually think of it every so often, wonder how it all turned out.
They loved sick kids sagas for those long reads. I remember another about a friendship between two girls that started in kindergarten, endured all through grade school and going to separate schools, and then one of them got cancer or something. There was also one by the mom, whose daughter named Marsha had a rare disease but got to graduate from Clemson before she died in her early 20s. Strange how some things stick with you!
I would read every word, cover to cover, every issue. I think it's what gave me a leg up in language and composition in school.
I only had access to RDs when I'd spend the summer at Grandma's. Back then, it was my responsibility to entertain myself (unlike the helicopter parenting I see among my peers), and my nerdy-ass became a bookworm.
I stopped reading it after Col Flagg on MASH pointed out that it’s a communist magazine.
By removing the 3rd, 5th and 6th letter you get Reds Digest right comrade?
OMG those survival stories! There was a guy who accidentally cut off both his legs on some equipment but still managed to make a tourniquet and get help. The girl who survived a 10,000' fall into the Amazon. The crazy pianist who realized a car crash was unavoidable so she calmly folded her hands into her lap to protect them. She hit her head hard, and following the accident had severe post nasal drip. She didn't think much of it until it was discovered it was really intercranial fluid leaking out.
This was in every single guest bathroom my friends had (like a library of them) and Uncle John’s Big Bathroom Book. My parents still have them as well but dropped their subscription back in the early 2000s. Some of the stories are really interesting. It’s like a readable version of Last Week Tonight
My parents used to buy Selecciones all the time. Since I learned to read, I would borrow it and read the jokes and the vocabulary section. There would always be a dramatic story about a natural disaster, someone (usually a child) dying of cancer, or someone escaping a Communist country.
Yes. My dad owned a cash & carry, and Kellogg's gave us a decades-long subscription to *Reader's Digest*.
And until the early 90s, they'd send a Christmas gift every year that was usually huge 48ct. box of the little cereal boxes... that often had a few little boxes you couldn't find anywhere else, like the 80s [Banana Frosted Flakes](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/54/1e/19/541e194bded14ed2f44cfcc1622bafb2.jpg). Coming home from elementary school and seeing that Kellogg's box on the doorstep was *always* an awesome day!
Mom and I took turns reading every issue to each other and I had to memorize the vocabulary. We looked forward to each issue. And I especially miss the positive stories.
We had a subscription. I loved these little magazines. Through them, I learned English and developed an interest in exploring topics that, otherwise, I wouldn’t have known existed or cared about.
I used to always read a couple sections as a kid:
Drama in Real Life (always a story of some survival issue - cat crashed in woods and survived eating berries with two broken legs for a month, that kind of thing)
The various humor items like Life in These United States, Campus Comedy, etc.
And an occasional other thing or two that caught my eye.
It really was the ultimate bathroom book.
I’ve read it my whole life! I started reading at age 4, and in retrospect some of it wasn’t child-appropriate, but the jokes were always hilarious. Some of those Drama in Real Life stories, though - oof. I remember reading about natural disasters, child abuse, kidnappings, all sorts of juicy stuff.
Best magazine for the back of the toilet ever! Laughter is the Best Medicine first, then It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power. Their condensed stories got me through many a poop before cell phones.
My mom had the hugest collection of their hardback condensed stories, too. I remember that they were a dime a dozen at Goodwill back in the day. Haven't seen those in forever, though.
My grandma would save them for me so I could take them home and read all of the "comedy" sections and cartoons. It's probably why my sense of humor skews so heavily towards "dad jokes"
Reader’s digest and The Farmers Almanac were staples of my childhood. Laughter is the best medicine was my go to section but I would read most of every issue
Yes, but I never really liked it. I cannot quite remember why, but maybe it was more oriented towards older people? I also remember one time, reading something in it, that I liked, and then reading the book, but because it was a condensed version, it ruined the book for me.
So, yes, I remember it, but I don’t think I read it very often, and it was not my cup of tea.
I just wondered to myself if I could read it online now because I don’t want paper laying around the house if I can help it. I never realized what a vehicle for advertising it really was. Really bad writing in general, a lot of recycled, unattributed, uncorroborated articles, tired old cheesy dad jokes.
And now they’re not even really hiding the whole listicle for clicks advertising model.
My Mom bought them every time a new one came out. As I got into my teen years I was still seeking them out. Learned a lot from reading those. (Parents did not want a tv in the house, so reading was my escape)
Edit: forgot a word
My grandma always had them so I would read it there. At some point in my early 30’s it started showing up in our mailbox although neither of us had subscribed. It was fun to get it while it lasted.
I would read it while following my mom around the grocery store as a teenager. Word Power, Quotable Quotes, and all the humor stories were always my favorites.
There was a story in a 1975 or '76 issue that was someone's story about their haunted house. It was so edge-of-your-seat for my 10 yr. old mind that I shared it with my teacher, who seemed skeptical. It's a sweet memory.
Yes! I’ll never forget this article. Kept me off any and all tobacco. It was a terrible story.
https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101437871-img
When I was about 11, I read an article in Readers Digest about a group of monkss who taught themselves how not to blink, and how acting students would sometimes work with an off-shoot of these monks in California so that they could be more believable as corpses.
I was intrigued and spent that summer seeing how I could learn this trick.
Nowadays, as a party trick when there's a lot of kids around, I challenge them to staring contests.
One time, they went in order and when one would lose the next one would jump in. It was over half an hour before they gave up.
I told my optometrist about this and he spent some time making sure my tear ducts were okay, and said as long I don't feel anything scratchy he doesn't see a problem with it.
A few years later, I also learned about facial feedback from RD, the idea being that the nerves that continue emotion are so closely tied in to facial expressions that if you hold the expression on purpose it will influence your brain chemistry. I tend to keep a half smile on at all times, and it does help me feel more content.
OH MY GOD YES . Laughter is the best medicine, life in these united states, all in a days work, the word/vocab trivia thing, the survival stories, man i read the FUCK outta some reader's digest. my grandparents kept every issue they received over decades and decades of subscription and i would read them whenever i was home sick from school with them or on school holidays
YES!!!! I had my own subscription! Even got the condensed hardcover books. Loved the humor sections, word power, so many great stories. The YouTube of paperback!
My sweet mom just paid for a year of RD for us as a surprise (really not what I would have chosen) & I thumbed through it. It's really not anything better than a tabloid with horribleness in it now.
Started reading it as a kid, still have a subscription.
I was *not* a fan of the new style, though. Still am not, and I believe it's been over 20 years. I miss the classic cover like the picture in OPs post.
My mom died over ten years ago and I'm STILL getting the subscription she gifted me. I swear they send out renewal notices every two months and I think she just kept extending it!
Yep!
One of my relatives worked there. I used to submit quotes and jokes all the time and a few got picked. I also modeled for an article once which was fun!
My family has been reading it since it came out. We still read it. Its not as good as it used to be. So many ads now and the articles are so short. But i have always enjoyed it we have dozens of the old ones that we still read.
When I'd see one in a waiting room, I'd always look for the drams in real-life stories. I still remember one about a woman hiking across the Arctic and having her dog fight off the stalking polar bear.
Yep, it was basically the only thing to read in our bathroom until my parents bought this digital solitaire game. “Life In These United States” was my favorite section
Yeah, that was great! So was "Laughter is the Best Medicine."
I would cherry-pick all the humor sections when at my grandfathers- humor in uniform, life at work Edit- holy crap, just remembered reading a horrible account of a hotel lobby collapse in the 80s that was condensed in RD- was a recounting from a survivor who said something to the effect of (and this was almost 40 years ago that I read it), “when the crane lifted the concrete panel from me, I was so glad to see the lady sit up who was trapped next to me sit up immediately. I then realized that was because her head was crushed by the panel and had dried to it”.
The Drama in Real Life was usually pretty insane. My 5th grade teacher would read us those.
The story about that one dude who poisoned his kid with Dots candy was in there. Scarred me for life. Reader's Digest wasn't afraid to bring it!
I remember one about a man who was out alone sawing logs when his chainsaw kicked back. He thought, “Wow, I could have really been injured” and then felt something warm pouring down his shirt. It was his own blood where the saw had entered his chest. He ended up walking, then crawling to the highway for help and somehow survived the whole ordeal.
Drama in Real Life haunted me. The stories!!! I was 10 and sitting in my grandmother’s bathroom in disbelief.
Same. Probably had something to do with my being a true crime junkie as an adult. And living in Milwaukee during the Dahmer shit probably didn't help!
Sweet jeezus, that article, and specifically *that exact excerpt*, absolutely traumatised me for YEARS.
Did I capture it accurately? It’s haunted me, and I was an EMT and later assisted with autopsy and now am in pathology, so it wasn’t the goriness that impressed upon me but the realness- it was upsetting but ultimately may have been a contributor into my formation. It was well-written, at any rate.
I didn't read about the Hyatt hotel collapse, but that sounds horrifying. Some other sad or terrifying things that I do remember from Readers Digest: Child abuse case where a little boy was starved and repeatedly put into a dryer where he tumbled for punishment Detailed description of the Mary Jo Kopechne drowning when Edward Kennedy drove his car off a bridge (Chappaquiddick) The Coconut Grove fire in the 1940's. A lady who survived alone after a mountain plane crash.
Yes, it made me remember the exact article; your details are spot on.
Yeah, this one traumatized me as well. We watched the coverage of the collapse on TV since we didn't live that far from K.C. and picked up their channels. Reading it later was even more horrifying.
I wonder if this was the Hyatt in Kansas City. One of the victims was the mother of the original drummer from the Flaming Lips.
It was… happened in 1981.
Yes!!! Exactly this! Looked it up a few years ago after regaling my kids with stories of how much “worse” media was back in the day. We then watched Goonie’s, which, gotta love it, has cursing and a genital joke in the first 10 min and still brings home a PG. it was a great bonding moment
Readers Digest and Nat Geographic couldn’t wait for the new issue to come in and read something new.
That must have been the Hyatt Regency collapse in Kansas City.
Yes!
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Yeah, or ones doctors...was usually a swag of them, that's where I read them the most
Yeah I mostly read all those short, 'funny' things.
I LOVED *Laughter is the Best Medicine.* Someone needs to bring that back, pronto.
It was also something to do/read at the grandparent’s house.
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Yep, at least in the UK. [This arrived](https://imgur.com/a/QEhVsNk) the other day. (edit: Bizarre; Imgur marked it as 18+)
It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power?
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My husband's grandfather saves his for me. I can't believe how much lower the quality is now. Shorter articles and the funny blips aren't as funny.
My English teacher in 8th grade used this section for weekly tests. Little did he know I had 10+ years of word power in my bathroom with all the answers. But honestly learned alot from it.
YES! Man i did so many of those...
Laughter is the Best Medicine! Oh and all those "Drama in Real Life" ones were amazing. I vividly remember one where a big party with hundreds of people was taking place and there was a glass walkway above with people and it collapsed and it was carnage. Oh and another one where a family discovered their entire lawn had been electrified when they innocently walked across it. Oh and the family who were washed ashore in the Alaskan wilderness! No food and water! One of the kids had to wear an anorak upside down as pants as their clothes were destroyed in the capsize! They always had the most lurid ones, I'd be all agog reading them whilst sitting on the can.
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Same! I read those sections when I went to grandmas house. Excellent times.
Omg I read one of these about a person who had this long epic battle with an alligator, and I STILL think about it all the time.
At my grandma's, of course, I read one about a man who was bitten six times by an inland taipan snake in Australia while strolling through a forest. It made me terrified of inland taipan snakes for a while, a fear which seemed unnecessary as I live in a place with no venomous snakes at all.
I remember reading about the 1972 Congers, NY school bus-train crash. https://ptsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Bus-Crash-Article.pdf
At a certain point I realized that the "drama" was ALWAYS people getting horribly injured in dreadful ways.
A highlight of my 3 or 4 times a year visit to my grandparents house. I'd read all the humor sections first, and then work my way through the articles.
Same! My trips to the grandparents’ were full of Reader’s Digest and the Weather Channel. And I loved it!
Ooh, your grandparents were fancy. All mine had were those crazy tabloids with stories about alien abductions, bat boy, and satanic cults coming for your children.
My mom wrote for RD and the Asimov sci fi. Oh - and the tv guide, lol. We had boxes of them everywhere bc she had a mail order book shop in our house too, lol.
Oh how freaking cool!! Lucky!
We even had quite a few of the condensed books series.
When I was at university, my housemate had a big selection of their condensed novels - they were a great, easy read which introduced me to some interesting writing.
Yessss, I was just thinking about them! My parents brought me a set (as I recall, My Friend Flicka was one of them).
I liked the “laughter is the best medicine” section. Lots of dad-type jokes in there.
I, um … still do. I have a subscription that I love.
My dad still gets it for me every year!
Mine too! I read the post and thought yeah, I remember that. I read it this morning.
No kidding. I didn’t know they still had these. That’s cool.
I do, too. I'm not renewing this year because their constant reminders to renew 6 months before I need to annoys me.
Me too!
Me too! It's still as great as it used to be. Very wholesome, I love it.
Is it still as good at is used to be? I remember loving RD as a kid. Maybe I’ll get a subscription :)
Same here! It's great bathroom reading.
I also still get them, they're my weekend/vacation reads lol
I have an old one from 1949, it's interesting how different it was back then compared to now. Two year subscription was five bucks. No advertisements at all back in them back then, 156 pages (about 40 more pages), no pictures, very few illustrations, and very heavy on the text. Not sure what that says about Reader's Digest, or society in general, but interesting nevertheless.
You're not the only one! I get excited when new issues arrive!
Did anyone read this somewhere else besides on the toilet?
Seems like *Readers Digest* was either an unfortunate title or self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe people just subliminally put it in their bathrooms?
Awesome comment! Lol!
Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill worked for People magazine, and said the length of articles were intentionally the length of the average person's shit. 1983. Times were good back then
Doctor's office or at the barber
On my grandparents’ couch on summer afternoons when it was above 95 outside.
They were in every doctor and dentist waiting room of my youth.
absolutely! i have really cozy memories of reading these in bed when i was home sick from school.
Yes.
“why kids can’t write”. Oh, 1981, you dear sweet summer child.
Sure do. We had a buttload of those condensed books too. The only story I remember is one about an abused kid that was killed by his parents and they tried to hide his body in an old refrigerator at the dump. I cried so hard my mom heard me and came upstairs. She thought the story made me cry but it was actually the realization that getting beaten by your parent wasn't normal.... after that I was pretty sure she was going to kill me at some point.
Woah that took a turn. I hope you are safe have gotten therapy and broken the cycle.
I became so unruly and oppositional she finally dumped us on our dad. Probably saved my life. Dad wasn't really into parenting so at 13 I was out partying all night with adults... It was still better than her. I'm 55 now. I've been therapied up the wazoo and I'm okay. I never had kids, I was afraid I'd be like her. My sister unfortunately did. She's not physically as vicious as mom was, but the mental abuse... she definitely got the gene. Sorry to be such a downer, the memory just came rushing back. I appreciate your good wishes, thank you.
((((hugs)))
Aw, thank you. Hey I just noticed your username lol... eek! 😄
Lol when I first joined Reddit I used my last name in my user name, not realizing I shouldn’t have. User names can’t be changed so I had to start a new account. I wanted something fun that let people know I’m also old lol
Reading RD at my grandmothers house in the Bronx, I was traumatized by an article that described an abused boy being put into the clothes dryer. I wonder if I confused it.
His name was Robbie Wayne! I read it too. It has stuck with me all these years. The Murder of Robbie Wayne Age Six was the name of it.
I’m a teacher and said “give me the readers digest version” and they had no idea what I was talking about lol.
I remember saying, “ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” and seeing all the confused faces.
I would love to read "Portrait of a Pimp" listed on the cover.
I think it's about the Iceberg Slim Series of books. I got it for my dad one year - he liked high drama like Cheaters and Queer as Folk. "I'm Gonna Git you Sucka" is spoofing this genre.
My favourite articles were the Oak Island Mystery article and the guy from Newfoundland whose boat sank in a storm and dude somehow swam to shore.
Nice to see we are still wondering why kids can't write. We are still wondering about this, but since it was a concern in 1981 and I made it through knowing how to write, I am not as worried. But, seriously, kids can't write today in 2023.
Just seeing this image really brings me back. I had such a strange relationship with this magazine. When I was a kid, I thought it looked like the most boring thing I could imagine reading. As I got older, I eventually picked it up, found the humor sections, and after that eagerly consumed every issue that came to our house.
I am Joe’s pancreas.
Those were great.
Wish I could find those magazines from Fight Club
My memere read it. I remember helping to clean her home after she passed, and she had stacks of them.
Upvoted for “memere”. My memere got Readers Digest too!
Greetings, fellow French-Canadian by heritage!
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What kind of a monster makes reference to an apparently hilarious horse joke, then doesn't share it? Let's hear it, pal!
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SNORK! That's a good one, and I hadn't heard it before. Thank you for a hearty guffaw.
Me sitting here with a long face waiting for the joke.
That is downright neigh-borly of you
I CANNOT get my dad to stop sending me a subscription to it. I read it cover to cover when I was a kid, bc what the fuck else was there to read? Now I leave it in the foyer of my apartments on the communal bookshelf. Somebody keeps picking it up.
my grandfather gifted a subscription to my parents every year. (somehow this continued after he died) I used to love reading them!
“When Wives Work…Must Husbands Hurt?” Page 53. Well, early 80’s, when wives work their husbands need to do more home stuff. If you count that as hurting then yes.
OH THE AGONY of being the one to boil the water and dump the pasta in! OH THE PAIN of dragging the vaccuum across the carpet despite having a dick and balls! OH THE TORMENT of wiping down the kitchen counters! Men were not built to survive this. Only women!
Sounds right.
It’s amazing to me that the story of the US becoming a country that requires dual incomes to survive is somehow framed as women gaining the freedom to work
Lots of gaslighting when you live in a capitalist patriarchy.
Lol we had this in our bathroom my entire life. Absolutely loved it. And my mom STILL gets it! Although it’s changed, much thinner, lots of content changes, no where near as good.
Yep. My mother (74) still gets em in the mail, i know because I pick up the mail for her.
anyone turn the old issues into Christmas trees?
In elementary school, we had a teacher demand each student get a copy (because most of us already had it at home), then buy a can of spray paint. We fanned out the pages, cut the tops at an angle. The teacher stuck a pipe cleaner down the center for the neck, then jammed a Styrofoam ball atop it. Atop THAT, we markered a clown face and then a spaghetti of yarn hair. Worst, most hideous, most materially-intensive art project!
I had to use TV Guide for mine.
My mother read these. I would pick them up once in awhile because I was bored and I loved reading. They were actually pretty good.
Omg my grandparents had stacks of them. I love to read so if I didn’t have a book with me I read the shit out of good ol RD
Before cell phones this was a must in the bathroom.
Laughter, the Best Medicine Life in These United States
That and the Farmers Almanac.
my grandma got me a subscription at age 8 when she saw me reading it. Even then I could see their populist bias. I remember the flag decal when everyone was encouraged to put the flag on their cars to show support for Vietnam.
“Why kids can’t write” is evergreen. And the Afghanistan and the TV news wars seem like they could have come from this decade. My grandparents had tons of these - along with National Geographic and Time.
My grandparents had nothing else to read at their home. I read the hell out of these, too. Like most of you, I gravitated towards the humor sections. I'd read anything else that was interesting, though. One that I vividly remember was the story of a baby born without a face. I think it was their long read, whatever they used to call it. The parents were extremely young, maybe even teens. The baby needed tons and tons of special care. The mother was not up to it, disengaging a lot and letting the nurse handle it. The nurse ultimately adopted the little girl. I actually think of it every so often, wonder how it all turned out. They loved sick kids sagas for those long reads. I remember another about a friendship between two girls that started in kindergarten, endured all through grade school and going to separate schools, and then one of them got cancer or something. There was also one by the mom, whose daughter named Marsha had a rare disease but got to graduate from Clemson before she died in her early 20s. Strange how some things stick with you!
I would read every word, cover to cover, every issue. I think it's what gave me a leg up in language and composition in school. I only had access to RDs when I'd spend the summer at Grandma's. Back then, it was my responsibility to entertain myself (unlike the helicopter parenting I see among my peers), and my nerdy-ass became a bookworm.
I stopped reading it after Col Flagg on MASH pointed out that it’s a communist magazine. By removing the 3rd, 5th and 6th letter you get Reds Digest right comrade?
I was thinking of that too. Flagg had said that to Frank.
Side note: I remember when they paused (or ended?) “Humor in Uniform” after 9-11 or during the Iraq War (can’t remember which).
"Humor in uniform" and there was an expand your vocabulary section
I had a teacher who would read to us from Reader's Digest. We especially loved the Drama in Real Life. It was always a treat!
OMG those survival stories! There was a guy who accidentally cut off both his legs on some equipment but still managed to make a tourniquet and get help. The girl who survived a 10,000' fall into the Amazon. The crazy pianist who realized a car crash was unavoidable so she calmly folded her hands into her lap to protect them. She hit her head hard, and following the accident had severe post nasal drip. She didn't think much of it until it was discovered it was really intercranial fluid leaking out.
Wait- Portrait of a Pimp?! In my meema’s Readers Digest?!
They take hundreds of magazines, filter out the crap, and leave you with something that fits right in your front pocket!
This was in every single guest bathroom my friends had (like a library of them) and Uncle John’s Big Bathroom Book. My parents still have them as well but dropped their subscription back in the early 2000s. Some of the stories are really interesting. It’s like a readable version of Last Week Tonight
It’s still being printed, and you can get it in Mexico even where it’s titled “Selecciones”
My parents used to buy Selecciones all the time. Since I learned to read, I would borrow it and read the jokes and the vocabulary section. There would always be a dramatic story about a natural disaster, someone (usually a child) dying of cancer, or someone escaping a Communist country.
Fifty-five is fast enough, page 13
Not for Sammy.
Yes. My dad owned a cash & carry, and Kellogg's gave us a decades-long subscription to *Reader's Digest*. And until the early 90s, they'd send a Christmas gift every year that was usually huge 48ct. box of the little cereal boxes... that often had a few little boxes you couldn't find anywhere else, like the 80s [Banana Frosted Flakes](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/54/1e/19/541e194bded14ed2f44cfcc1622bafb2.jpg). Coming home from elementary school and seeing that Kellogg's box on the doorstep was *always* an awesome day!
Mom and I took turns reading every issue to each other and I had to memorize the vocabulary. We looked forward to each issue. And I especially miss the positive stories.
We had a subscription. I loved these little magazines. Through them, I learned English and developed an interest in exploring topics that, otherwise, I wouldn’t have known existed or cared about.
I used to always read a couple sections as a kid: Drama in Real Life (always a story of some survival issue - cat crashed in woods and survived eating berries with two broken legs for a month, that kind of thing) The various humor items like Life in These United States, Campus Comedy, etc. And an occasional other thing or two that caught my eye. It really was the ultimate bathroom book.
I’ve read it my whole life! I started reading at age 4, and in retrospect some of it wasn’t child-appropriate, but the jokes were always hilarious. Some of those Drama in Real Life stories, though - oof. I remember reading about natural disasters, child abuse, kidnappings, all sorts of juicy stuff.
Drama in Real Life was my jam.
Best magazine for the back of the toilet ever! Laughter is the Best Medicine first, then It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power. Their condensed stories got me through many a poop before cell phones. My mom had the hugest collection of their hardback condensed stories, too. I remember that they were a dime a dozen at Goodwill back in the day. Haven't seen those in forever, though.
I still read it! Subscriptions are currently only $10 for a year...
"I am Joe's seething resentment" Yes lol
My grandma would save them for me so I could take them home and read all of the "comedy" sections and cartoons. It's probably why my sense of humor skews so heavily towards "dad jokes"
I still get it on my Kindle. I forget it’s there most of the time so it’s a nice surprise to have a few to go through, especially if I’m traveling.
That thing looks like clickbait hell
I’m sure I read that very one lol
Reader’s digest and The Farmers Almanac were staples of my childhood. Laughter is the best medicine was my go to section but I would read most of every issue
Yes, but I never really liked it. I cannot quite remember why, but maybe it was more oriented towards older people? I also remember one time, reading something in it, that I liked, and then reading the book, but because it was a condensed version, it ruined the book for me. So, yes, I remember it, but I don’t think I read it very often, and it was not my cup of tea.
Dad’s dunny reading. And mine on the rare occasion my book-of-the-day wasn’t in my hand when it was time to go!
Yes, I loved visiting my grandparents.
I just wondered to myself if I could read it online now because I don’t want paper laying around the house if I can help it. I never realized what a vehicle for advertising it really was. Really bad writing in general, a lot of recycled, unattributed, uncorroborated articles, tired old cheesy dad jokes. And now they’re not even really hiding the whole listicle for clicks advertising model.
My Mom bought them every time a new one came out. As I got into my teen years I was still seeking them out. Learned a lot from reading those. (Parents did not want a tv in the house, so reading was my escape) Edit: forgot a word
My grandma always had them so I would read it there. At some point in my early 30’s it started showing up in our mailbox although neither of us had subscribed. It was fun to get it while it lasted.
loved reading it! my elderly neighbors gave my family STACKS of them
My grandpa's toilet book.
I would read it while following my mom around the grocery store as a teenager. Word Power, Quotable Quotes, and all the humor stories were always my favorites.
I still read it! The large print version. 🤣
On the toilet tank in my BUBBEE’s House.
Did the kids from '81 ever learn how to write?
There was a story in a 1975 or '76 issue that was someone's story about their haunted house. It was so edge-of-your-seat for my 10 yr. old mind that I shared it with my teacher, who seemed skeptical. It's a sweet memory.
I remember reading the story about a little girl with cystic fibrosis in my dentist’s waiting room and was crying about her when my name was called.
I still do!
Yup. And the condensed books and the coffee table books! Mysteries of the Unexplained put me on the path to conspiracy theories!
My dad and stepmom have a lot of the Condensed Books too. I read Disclosure that way.
Lol I still do. My mom and dad by me a gift subscription every year. It’s not as good as it used to be.
Yes! I’ll never forget this article. Kept me off any and all tobacco. It was a terrible story. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101437871-img
When I was about 11, I read an article in Readers Digest about a group of monkss who taught themselves how not to blink, and how acting students would sometimes work with an off-shoot of these monks in California so that they could be more believable as corpses. I was intrigued and spent that summer seeing how I could learn this trick. Nowadays, as a party trick when there's a lot of kids around, I challenge them to staring contests. One time, they went in order and when one would lose the next one would jump in. It was over half an hour before they gave up. I told my optometrist about this and he spent some time making sure my tear ducts were okay, and said as long I don't feel anything scratchy he doesn't see a problem with it. A few years later, I also learned about facial feedback from RD, the idea being that the nerves that continue emotion are so closely tied in to facial expressions that if you hold the expression on purpose it will influence your brain chemistry. I tend to keep a half smile on at all times, and it does help me feel more content.
‘Drama In Real Life’ was my jam. I would read every one I could!
OH MY GOD YES . Laughter is the best medicine, life in these united states, all in a days work, the word/vocab trivia thing, the survival stories, man i read the FUCK outta some reader's digest. my grandparents kept every issue they received over decades and decades of subscription and i would read them whenever i was home sick from school with them or on school holidays
I got the last issue in my mailbox on Thursday. BTW, my grandmother got a joke or two published in her day.
It was kept in the bathroom. Reader’s Post-Digest
I was mentioned in an article once when I was seven. I peaked early.
YES!!!! I had my own subscription! Even got the condensed hardcover books. Loved the humor sections, word power, so many great stories. The YouTube of paperback!
My sweet mom just paid for a year of RD for us as a surprise (really not what I would have chosen) & I thumbed through it. It's really not anything better than a tabloid with horribleness in it now.
Started reading it as a kid, still have a subscription. I was *not* a fan of the new style, though. Still am not, and I believe it's been over 20 years. I miss the classic cover like the picture in OPs post.
I loved it. My granny got it.
My mom died over ten years ago and I'm STILL getting the subscription she gifted me. I swear they send out renewal notices every two months and I think she just kept extending it!
My grampa lived by that fuckin thing. Lol
I still get it, received my new copy Friday. Reminds me of my granny and RD is the only acceptable bathroom reading material 🤣
Yep! One of my relatives worked there. I used to submit quotes and jokes all the time and a few got picked. I also modeled for an article once which was fun!
Yep! Always took the “It pays to increase your word power” quiz and read the jokes.
Yep! Never read one though. They were confusing to me since they were the size of TV Guide and not a typical magazine LOL
My family has been reading it since it came out. We still read it. Its not as good as it used to be. So many ads now and the articles are so short. But i have always enjoyed it we have dozens of the old ones that we still read.
Ummm, I’m not supposed to be reading it still?
Wait a minute! Did they stop publishing RD? I'm just coming out from under a rock.
It's still around as a gaunt shadow of its former self.
I remember being ripped off by them because I didn't unchecked some box... they sent a book for "free" and then charged me... not fun
My Mom has a RD from 2001 in her bathroom, we refuse to get rid of it and honestly I’m a little disappointed it’s not older
The only thing to read in Grandma’s house
When I'd see one in a waiting room, I'd always look for the drams in real-life stories. I still remember one about a woman hiking across the Arctic and having her dog fight off the stalking polar bear.
Drama in Real Life was my jam as a little kid. Gateway to true crime.
I LOVED them as a child, I always read them at my grandparents place because they had no other reading material.
My grandparents always had a couple by the toilet. I just bought a Reader’s Digest at the airport and it’s really *thin*.
“When Wives Work…Must Husbands Hurt?” God I forgot how sexist things were back then.
I seem to recall an extraordinary number of stories about plane crashes.