Books Beyond Print Blog by Unheard of Books

Condensed is For Soup, Not Books....but then again...

We were--all four of us--quite pleased with the timeshare unit: 33rd Street beachfront, second floor, overlooking the paved beach walk, foreground to the wide clean yellow sand stretching to the rolling Virginia Beach breakers. A sofa foldout for the kids in the living room, cable TV with VCR and DVD, a separate bedroom for me and Mom, two little balconies--all pretty cozy (read "tight") but comfortable. A nice dwelling for a week by the ocean.

And then, I saw the books. Three shelves of them, all hardbacks. Total, about 5 feet of literature. Almost instantly, though, I realized what these were, from the formulaic sameness of the spines...the consistent 1.25- to 1.5-inch widths, the characteristic four stacked titles in gold-serif lettering on rectangular panels, and I felt the warning blink in my brain...

"Step away from the condensations...." 37 volumes, ranging from 1954 (Night of the Hunter & three more condensations) to 1999 (Rainbow Six & three more distilled works) holding something like 160 separate titles...

I had brought along books to read, of course. And somehow I always lug along more than I end up reading. But within a day, between bike rides on the beachwalk and times with toes in the sand contemplating the Atlantic breakers...kite flying and delivering family pizzas...I was drawn back to the bookshelf...

This all happened about a year ago, but I was prompted to dig this out of my vacation notes and blog it, because 1) condensation is a way a book gets a new life, and that's what this blog is about and 2) recently I've read some articles about condensations returning to popularity.

First, as I looked over the books, I saw the following titles I'd already read the full versions of (parentheses represent the year of the RD series they're published in):

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Papillon ('70),
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax ('66)
Life With Father ('67)
The White Dawn ('71)
Love Story ('70)
Day of the Jackal ('72)
A Cry in the Night (read the condensation in RD, '83--hey, I was in the Peace Corps, no-doubt stuck on a weather-docked boat somewhere with nothing else to read)
Nathans Run ('96).

Some pretty good literature, some great page turners, some unforgettable adventure. Pretty good company.

It was partly because of my memories of these reads that I told my self, "Just one..." and laid aside my Bill Bryson, temporarily.

So I dusted off a 1958 volume, and selected a western. The Diamond Hitch by Frank O'Rourke. A gritty "present day" (1950s) western. It was very good. A young guy trying to make it in rodeo in Wyoming. Not a western in the "legendary" sense, not an "Old West" western. More realistic, more modern. Not at all hollywood or disneyesque (well, maybe just a smidge disneyoid.)

Then, in rapid succession, I read
Rose by Martin Cruz Smith.
Prospect by Bill Littlefield.
The Young Elizabeth by Jennette & Francis Letton.
And a Formula Spy Thriller by a spy thriller formulist whose name I can't remember either.

Rose wasn't bad. Best part of it was its historical background, child- and female- labor in English coal mines century before last. Smith and I go way back. Meaning, me as a reader, Smith as a writer. In the 70s, when he was plain Martin Smith, he wrote an alternate history titled The Indians Won. It may have been his first novel, and it wasn't very good. But he got better, much better, didnt he?

The Young Elizabeth was quite good. As in Queen Elizabeth, the Liz the Q1, the one with Essex and Cousin Mary of Scots and all. She had to get wise quickly, grow up, figure out how to survive in a vicious royal succession minefield milieu.

But reading condensations is like singlehandedly eating a bag of Cheetos. Tasty and satisfying at first. Then, by the time I got to the cheesy minor-league Prospect and the crime/spy/thriller, I'd had enough light crunchy goodness. I couldn't stop, of course, just like with Cheetos.

So, if you come upon three or four feet of these abbreviated books, don't step away from the condensations. Choose carefully, and you will likely find something you'll really like.

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Topic for Discussion:

Beyond Reader's Digest Condensations, should there be more condensations, for a world that moves at a faster pace, for shorter attention spans? (Orion Books is condensing the classics!)

Better yet, maybe the Utne Reader, which I've always thought of as RD for progressive thought, should start offering condensations, picking from the more unique and quirky fringes of book publishing.

Hey, the Old Books blog has some Creative Ways of Using Readers Digest Condensed Books...