The first thing that comes to mind with digest is Reader’s Digest, which I think is still around. What form not sure, but it used to be a small volume, maybe 5×7, that was a small magazine full of easy-reading human interest stories. It also had features that included ‘laughter the best medicine’ and ‘increasing your word power’ or something to that effect. It was a standard in every American home I think. Both parents and grandparents got their monthly issue. It was something the whole family could read. They also offered Reader’s Digest condensed books, where I’m not sure if they edited the books or just crammed several books into one thick volume. Like the stories in the monthly, the books in the condensed volume were easy readers. They also sold special music collections iirc. Nowadays all of the thoughtbytes contained in Reader’s Digest can be easily found on the internet. It’s a wonder that hard print magazines can even survive in this day of digital information. One thing you can’t do with a computer is take it with you when you sit on the toilet, so maybe magazines will still be able to fit a particular niche in society.
Tao Talk 
Those condensed books were a crime against literature…. but we used to get RD too.
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lol “a crime against literature” love it 🙂
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I miss these magazines. My mom had a few things published in them and had a subscription.
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In the olden times, human interest stories were, well, interesting to most people. Nowadays they pepper the horrible news with a few human interest stories. We are losing our humanity and it can lead to no good place. That’s very awesome your mom was published. Do you still have the issues she was published in??
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My sister has the copy somewhere…She had two things I know of…one about me and one about my sister in the late seventies.
I need to find out which ones and find them. I think my sister only has a transcript on what she wrote.
In this society I agree. Horrible news gets the headlines.
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Looks like more than a few of us thought of Reader’s Digest! Strange that something so unremarkable made such an impact…
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haven’t started reading the offerings yet, but glad to hear it was a fond memory in so many’s minds ❤ i loved it as a kid. it was like a friend you could count on
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My 98 year old aunt still gets the Readers Digest (paper version).
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98 years is quite an achievement ❤ it makes me smile to think of her reading Readers Digest
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I loved Readers Digest.
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We always had one sitting on the toilet. “Quotable quotes” and “laughter is the best medicine”…I always dreamed of submitting something. Does it even exist anymore?
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from some of the others who wrote about it today, yes, it still exists. one lady’s 98 year old relative still reads it!
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