#Am reading Goldsteins autobiography and stumbled on this one again

[supernovaautism]

How a Little Magazine Went Around the World

It is written by Reader’s Digest Editors, and originally published in January 1997 issue.

When Roumyana Vekilov and her husband emigrated from Bulgaria in 1993 and settled in Huntsville, Ala., she wanted desperately to understand and become a part of the America she saw around her. But she couldn't speak English. Then her husband brought home a copy of Reader's Digest. Using her Bulgarian/English dictionary she began translating the magazine "word by word, sentence by sentence, article after article." Month after month she learned "not only the language but also about the American customs, traditions, history, problems, meals and to understand more the American people and the way they look at life." She calls The Digest "my American life-style teacher, my English language textbook, my friend."

We like that. And especially those last two words.

Get past all the statistics--the 49 editions in 21 languages reaching 100 million readers around the world each month--and the real essence of who we are, the real fun of being Reader's Digest, is the friends we have made.

That's why, even as we celebrate our 95th anniversary (1922-2017), we feel so young. As we've grown, we've evolved and we keep making new friends. Funny thing is, we make new friends by remaining what we have always been--a magazine that connects with its readers.

That was part of the genius of our founder, DeWitt Wallace (1889-1981). The breathtaking growth of what he called his "Little Magazine" came about precisely because he never saw readers as some vast mass, but as distinct individuals with whom he wished to build a strong bond.

That's why the apostrophe is before the "s" in our name.

Whether in Huntsville or Hammerfest, Keokuk or Kathmandu, we aim to turn readers into friends. They take us along with them wherever they go. You'll find us dogeared in the doctor's office, grease-stained at the lunch counter, tucked in the fisherman's tackle box, the soldier's duffel, the businesswoman's briefcase.

We jog their minds, tickle their funny bones, warn them against dangers and even save their lives.

David Weiss, 29, of Suisun City, Calif., awoke with pains in his chest, arm and shoulder. He went to a local emergency room. An EKG revealed nothing abnormal. But he was still feeling the pains the next day when his cousin, who had just read our article "Little-Known Signs of a Heart Attack" (May 1993), said his symptoms sounded like those listed in The Digest. David's brother drove him to the hospital again, where he was found to be in the midst of a heart attack. The article "saved my son's life," wrote Vivian Weiss.

We have received thousands of such letters over the years as the result of articles on heart disease, skin cancer, little-known health dangers and important discoveries in science and medicine presented in clear, concise language. "Reader's Digest has to be the most popular magazine on the planet. We have never seen such a response," says Dr. Irwin Goldstein, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine, reacting to more than a thousand inquiries about an article we published on male sexual dysfunction.

Navy Commander George Farrar was stationed in Ireland when he called his wife, who told him about their 12-year-old daughter, Sarah. She had been bitten by something in their yard. Mrs. Farrar took her to the doctor, who diagnosed "an infected fleabite." Now Sarah's leg was swelling. As it happened, Farrar had read a Reader's Digest article about the highly poisonous brown recluse spider. "Get the magazine and read the article," he said. She did. "As soon as I read it, I knew that a spider had bitten Sarah." Mrs. Farrar took her to the hospital and took our article along to show the doctors. Sarah was hospitalized for six days but escaped any serious permanent damage. Says Mrs. Farrar, "I just can't tell you how much I appreciate Reader's Digest coming to the rescue."

Sometimes our effect on people's health and well-being is more long-range. Dr. Maria Compte writes from New York to say we inspired her to become a doctor. She was 15 years old when she read an article in The Digest about Dr. Tom Dooley's pioneering work among poor villagers in Southeast Asia. "Today, almost exactly 20 years after that summer day, I am writing these lines while sitting at a desk at Dooley Foundation-Intermed."

When GeorgiaAnn Camara's husband went to sea as an engineer aboard a nuclear submarine, he would be unreachable for 90 days or more. But he took something very special with him. It was a journal his wife prepared so that they could "visit" with each other every day they were apart. Attached to each day's entry from her was an item from our magazine. "I attach a story, a quote or a point to each day and I share with him what these words have meant to me," says Mrs. Camara. When her husband returned from a voyage, he gave her the journal filled out with his daily thoughts on each of his wife's entries and attachments. "You have helped give me the gift of conversation with my husband though he is thousands of miles away."

When Mad magazine published its parody of "Reader's Disgust" (the table of contents promised a two-page condensation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) it really began to dawn on us that we weren't just any magazine. Reach a certain level of acceptance and you're in for a lot of ribbing. Actually, we enjoy the jokes--whether it's a parody from National Lampoon, or that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer gets so head-over-heels smitten with the "Reading Digest."

The droll cartoonist Guindon once drew a young couple, back from vacation, explaining to their mailman that "we were at one of those cabins up north where Reader's Digests go when they die."

J. J. Bushnell, from Tigard, Ore., actually stumbled upon one of "those cabins" when he was lost and injured in the Canadian woods near Vancouver. The man and his wife who lived there gave him food and shelter and helped him recover from his ankle injury. To entertain him they loaned him "an old single copy of Reader's Digest," which he devoured from cover to cover. Bushnell was hooked. Once back home he became a lifelong reader.

So you see, copies of Reader's Digest never die. Sometimes, however, they're pressed into service in odd ways. We don't mind being used to level a tilting desk, insulate a wall (it's been done) or keep two water pipes from knocking (folding it lengthwise provides just enough tension and usually does the trick). Roy Valitchka was on a hike with his oldest son, Scott, in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan. Scott had the latest Reader's Digest in his backpack for lunchtime reading. When Roy injured his knee, that copy of The Digest "was just the right length, width and rigidity necessary to immobilize the knee joint. A length of surgical tape held the magazine in place at the pivot point and two bandannas secured the top and bottom." At the end of the 18-mile trek, Scott praised his dad for toughing out the final miles but insisted that he buy a new copy of The Digest to replace the "disfigured, sweat-soaked copy that saved the day."

We've even become a kind of underground currency in Africa. "I once mortgaged 20 Digests to a 'Digestophile' just to raise enough transport fare to visit my sick uncle," writes Muktar Ali, from Chad. He tells us copies of the magazine are so precious they are "purchased and sold, repurchased, read and resold or borrowed and reborrowed continuously" and are "exchanged for a variety of items or favors."

Over the years we have sometimes been chided for being too optimistic. We stand guilty as charged. We believe in solutions. We believe in the capacity of human beings to overcome. When Nelson Mandela was in prison in South Africa, he gained resolve and inspiration from Reader's Digest articles "showing people overcoming great odds and difficult challenges." In his autobiography, the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat remembered that when he was serving time in a British prison, our magazine provided a turning point for him. "It was thanks to an article contributed by an American psychologist to the Reader's Digest that I succeeded in getting over my troubles." He writes that the article helped him renew his faith in God and in himself. "My relations with the entire universe began to be reshaped."

The world continues to change and we do too. We're publishing in places we've never been before, such as Thailand and the Czech Republic. Now, hundreds of thousands of people are getting to know us through our interactive Web site. Wherever you find us, we'll still be, as one subscriber recently called us, "a friend maker, a keep-you- up-to-dater."

One of our longtime readers, Frank Mara, of Hopatcong, N.J., wrote to tell us about his father, James, who had graduated high school at the height of the Depression, served in the Navy during World War II, then worked as a truck driver until his retirement. "He instilled in us the desire to read and to never stop learning. He used The Digest as his chief tool. There was always The Digest, every month, year in and year out, and always discussions or arguments about one article or another."

As the kids grew up he kept sending them gift subscriptions. "It's been good for me," he explained, "and I haven't done too bad for a broken- down truck driver." When James Mara died at the age of 77 he left behind his wife and four children (a teacher, a surveyor/architect, a Navy senior chief petty officer and an engineer), 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. His son writes:

"I was not aware of the impact of my dad and his love for The Digest until last month, when I saw my ten-year- old son reading the last issue of Dad's last gift." Mara thought about his dad's words, "It's been good for me." So he sent us a check for his subscription and asked that we "please say a prayer that I can do as well as that broken-down truck driver for my kids."

That explains as well as anything what we mean by making new friends ... and keeping old ones.