Individual Blog Post #3 - This Read is Easy to Digest

Recently, I discovered that Readers Digest doesn't just do magazines. In fact they do a lot of stuff, but my new favorite thing is their select editions. It is a series of four condensed stories in one book. You can sample four books in the time it may take you to read one. It allows for you try out new authors you have never heard of, but at the same time authors that have been selected for their adept story telling. These books also feature well known authors such as Marry Higgins Clark and Nicholas Sparks.

The authors are often surprised at how well the story stays true to form despite the amount of information that was removed. Nicholas Sparks comments, "the editors of Reader's Digest Select Editions continue to work their magic, their treatment of my novels couldn't be better." For instance, I just read the book Whiteout by Ken Follett. If you read the book in its entirety it would be 396 pages long, while the story I read was only 165 pages. At first I was skeptical, if I want to read a story, I want read all of it, find out all of the character idiosyncrasies, and the get to experience all the details of the story. But as I read it, the story moved quickly; it was suspenseful and interesting. I didn't feel like anything was missing. When I read reviews of Whiteout, people said it was a mediocre story that moved too slowly. I was surprised to hear the review, but it makes you realize that Readers Digest took out all the extra information that can drag down a book. We've all been there; where a good story can drag on and on because unnecessary details and information impede the flow of the story.

There are just so many great books out there, and never enough time to experience them all. These books offer such a great solution! The books are short in pages to begin with, but the way they are edited makes them fast paced and quickly/easily read. I would recommend these books to anyone who feels like I do, too many books, not enough time.