My aunt Betty loved to read.
This should not be a surprise to anyone – I’ve already written about her love for mysteries, some of them surprisingly racy – but looking back it’s something of a shock to realize that she probably read a book every week or two. Most of her reading was either on the bus to Pittsburgh on her daily commute, which meant whatever she could slip into her purse. She also liked to read a chapter or two once she’d retired to what we called a “bedroom” and she termed her “boudoir” after an exhausting evening of foisting the post-dinner clean up on her sister and brother, washing and then setting her hair for work, and watching Kojak, Gunsmoke, or whichever TV show featured a handsome hero slamming the bad guys up against the wall during an interrogation.
Betty’s tastes ran more to light entertainment than the serious literature and better mysteries that Mum enjoyed, or the history and science fiction that I devoured when I wasn’t writing fan fiction and wishing I was on the crew of the USS Enterprise. She preferred mysteries and thrillers (particularly if a bad guy got slammed up against the wall during an interrogation), laced with the occasional tale of romantic suspense a la Phyllis Whitney or Victoria Holt. She worked hard at her job as a legal secretary, sometimes staying as late as 9:00 or 10:00 at night, and if she wanted to spend her leisure time reading about Colonel Poupon dispatching an enemy in the pleasaunce with an assegai he’d picked up fighting the bloody Boers, she was entitled.
To keep her well supplied with reading material, Betty would pick up paperbacks at the local drugstore or newsstand. She also belonged to several book clubs, including the Mystery Guild and the Doubleday Bargain Book Club, and at least two lesser mystery clubs that bundled their books into three-in-one volumes. She also had a subscription to one of the greatest sources of reading material, both novels and non-fiction, in American history: Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.
These thick little anthologies used to arrive each quarter in millions of American homes, bringing shortened editions of between three and six best selling books. The choices ran heavily to middlebrow novels or informative if not groundbreaking non-fiction, with an emphasis on wholesome, all-American values and writers. Reader’s Digest was targeting the average middle class American who wanted to stay well read but didn’t have time to go to bookstores or read whole books, which meant that each book was cut by about a third (or more in the case of really long books). Profanity, sex scenes, and excessive violence were removed during the editing process, along with anything overtly political the writers themselves had managed to include, but by and large the editorial staff managed to do a good job keeping the core of the book intact.
This may sound like literary butchery, and I can’t imagine that the authors of these books were necessarily pleased by the results (if not the money). At the same time, it is a matter of record that Betty was happier, calmer, and much, much more tolerant of other people and cultures when her mental nourishment consisted of a steady diet of whodunits and Condensed Books rather than Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. She wasn’t the only one, either; it was a rare middle class household during the 1970’s that didn’t have at least a couple of volumes of Condensed Books in the knotty pine rumpus room, most of them pretty well thumbed.
Mine was among the thumbs that perused these books when I visited my aunt. I’ve always been a fast reader, and I usually could zip through one or two of the included books in an afternoon. I encountered a lot of mid-century best sellers that way that I otherwise would never have touched, in genres that otherwise had about as much appeal as unsweetened microwave oatmeal-like substance flavored with brownish lumps of artificial maple flavored chemicals. Some were about as yummy and memorable as a steaming bowl of such breakfast grains, but others have remained with me over the years.
Mysteries...medical thrillers...love stories...tales of every day life...I would wait for Betty to finish each quarter's book, then start in myself. I rarely had the money or the time to head out to the nearest Waldenbooks (in South Hills Village, which is not all that close to Pleasant Hills), but thanks to the Reader's Digest I ended up reading a lot - a lot, I tell you - of adult bestsellers in condensed form, especially novels. Betty's own collection is long since dispersed, but I've kept an eye out for particular favorites at tag sales and thrift shops, and say what you will about the format or the edits, a condensed book is just the right length to read at the laundromat while one's winter bedding is in the dryer.
I'd assumed that the Condensed Books had gone the way of all things long since; Reader's Digest itself isn't nearly as popular as it was in this digital age, not to mention that the idea of condensed books is about as au courant and up to date as a Lil' Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring. I'm delighted to report that I was wrong. The Condensed Books as such are gone, but only because they were renamed "Reader's Digest Select Editions" back in 1997. They're now published every other month and are all novels, including selections by currently popular authors like Jeffrey Deaver, Mary Higgins Clark, John Grisham, and Fannie Flagg. Volumes cost $23.99 plus postage and handling, which is a real bargain considering how much hardcover books cost these days, and if you aren't necessarily getting the next John Steinbeck, you'll at least be getting light escapism at less than the cost of four or five paperbacks.
You'll also be getting something perfectly suited to take to the laundromat, either to read during the dry cycle or leave for the next person - and considering how often the only thing to read at the local Washing Well or Suds 'n Duds are crumbling copies of The Pennysaver, Avon catalogs, or the occasional pamphlet from the Jehovah's Witnesses, it's clear that Condensed Books Select Editions still have a place in the world.
Tonight I bring you ten of my favorite Condensed Books. Some I've gone on to read in the original edition, while others have remained vivid only in my memory. All, though, have touched my life in some way:
The Hand of Mary Constable, by Paul Gallico - Paul Gallico, a sometime sportswriter turned novelist, is best known today for trifles like Scruffy (about a baboon on the Rock of Gibraltar) and The Snow Goose (the sentimental story of an artist, a local girl who befriends him, and wild bird who all find themselves caught up in the Dunkirk evacuation), but my personal favorite of his books is this supernatural thriller. Ostensibly the story of an investigation into a (possibly) fake medium, the book also touches on the nature of love, the loss of a child, and the price exacted by truth.
Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman - my mother liked this one so much she ended up buying the hardcover, but she was a teacher so little wonder. That rarest of creatures, an epistolary novel that actually makes sense, this is the story of a young teacher's first year in an inner city story as told through the memos, notes, and suggestions of her students, colleagues, and administrators. Funny, touching, and very, very real.
Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer - this may be the novel that led to my obsession with the US Army prior to Vietnam, and the difference between patriotic service and blind jingoism. It follows two young officers, one an honorable soldier who puts his men first, the other a schemer who's only out for himself, as they advance through the ranks from the Great War through Vietnam. It's required reading at the service academies, and once you read it you'll know why. Highly, highly recommended.
In this House of Brede, by Rumer Godden - Rumer Godden isn't nearly as well known as she deserves to be, but her career was long (from the 1930's through the late 1990's) and produced minor classics such as Black Narcissus and The Kitchen Madonna. This fine novel tells the story of a successful businesswoman who enters a cloistered order of nuns, the other women who enter the convent at her side, and the older nuns who begin as mentors and end as colleagues and friends.
Time and Again, by Jack Finney - wonderfully vivid time travel novel about a modern man who finds himself trying to save the future in fin de siecle New York. The ending is simultaneously a shock and a relief, and the portrait of pre-skyscraper Manhattan is spot-on. There was a sequel many years later, but it was only a shadow of this marvelous book.
The Winds of War, by Herman Wouk - how they ever condensed this sprawling tale of the run-up to World War II is beyond me, but condense it they did, and surprisingly well. The tale of a Navy man, his family, friends, and allies, it was turned into a miniseries with Robert Mitchum (very good) and Ali McGraw (very bad, and much too old for her part). The sequel, War and Remembrance, wasn't nearly as good, but this one holds up quite well.
The Sunbird, by Wilbur Smith - I adored this story of reincarnation, archaeology, lost African civilizations, and tragic love when I was a teenager. Adventurous and romantic, it also contains a disturbing anti-black subtext that went whisking right over my head when I was kid. Still worth reading as an homage to late Victorian adventure fiction if you can stomach the sahib-knows-best parts.
The Diddakoi, by Rumer Godden - another Rumer Godden novel, this one with a sharper edge as it explores prejudice against a young Roma girl who finds herself living in an English town. The racial politics are probably pretty dated by now, but this was one of the first times I encountered the idea of standing up to bigotry in fiction, and it stayed with me.
I Take Thee, Serenity, by Daisy Newman - quasi-romance about a young woman, Serenity, who decides that she and her fiance should marry in the Quaker tradition. Not great literature, and not my usual choice, but something about this gentle, sweetly told story grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
The Boys from Brazil, by Ira Levin - this one has it all as far as I'm concerned: tight writing, a terrifying plot (Hitler clones being raised in the same circumstances as Der Fuehrer himself, including killing off their parents and making them live in similar neighborhoods), a gallant Nazi hunter modeled on Simon Wiesenthal, and a twist ending that made me wince. I wasn't happy with Laurence Olivier's performance in the movie, but the book holds up well.
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So...have you ever read a condensed book? The full versions of any of my picks? Do you have a collection to donate to the bored patrons at your local laundromat in place of the local Penny Saver or Avon catalog? Pull up a folding chair and share....
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