Published monthly since January 1922, Reader's Digest is the most widely read magazine in the world. At its peak in 1984, more than seventeen million readers in the United States subscribed to the publication, which reached another eleven million readers through its nineteen foreign-language editions. Since its debut, Reader's Digest has adhered to a simple formula of appealing to time-pressed readers by reprinting condensed versions of articles that have appeared in other publications. The magazine has also applied this format to a spinoff business in book publishing. The Reader's Digest Condensed Books series has published hundreds of shortened versions of novels and nonfiction alike.

The formula for this monthly magazine has remained unchanged for eighty years: approximately thirty condensed articles each issue (one for each day of the month), together with short, humorous stories contributed by readers in such departments as "Life in These...