Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest is a famous American family magazine.

It is published six times every year. For a long time, it was the most popular consumer magazine in the United States. It used to be based in Chappaqua, New York. Now, the main offices are in midtown Manhattan. The magazine is much smaller than most other magazines. Its pages are about half the size of a standard American magazine. In 2005, the company called it "America in your pocket." Later, in 2008, they changed the slogan to "Life well shared."

The way the magazine works is very special. The founders had a clever idea for a new kind of book. They wanted to gather the best articles from many different monthly magazines. They would sometimes shorten these stories or rewrite them. Then, they put all these great pieces into one single magazine. This gave readers a wide variety of topics in one place. For many years, each issue had about 30 different articles. They also included fun things like a vocabulary quiz. This quiz was called "It Pays to Increase your Word Power."

A couple named DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace started it all. They married in 1920 in Pleasantville, New York. Shortly after, they launched the first issue in February 1922. They actually started their business in a basement below a speakeasy in Greenwich Village. The magazine grew very fast because people liked what they read. By 1929, they had 290,000 subscribers. They even published their first international edition in the United Kingdom in 1938.

This helped the magazine spread across the whole world.

Today, Reader's Digest is a huge global brand. It has a total circulation of 10.5 million copies. This makes it the largest paid-circulation magazine in the world. It reaches 40 million people in more than 70 different countries. There are 49 different editions printed in 21 languages. You can even read it in Braille or listen to audio versions. The magazine has been in many places like Brazil, Japan, and Australia. It even had editions in Slovenia, Croatia, and Romania in 2008. Some editions, like the one in China, stopped publishing in 2012.

You might know other magazines that tell stories or give advice. Reader's Digest is similar because it shares many different kinds of news. It has even helped people learn about health. In 1952, it published articles linking smoking to lung cancer. It also helped students learn new words through a national challenge. The magazine uses many different ways to reach people today. They use digital versions and electronic marketing to stay modern. It remains a way for families to share interesting stories together.