Classic Books Re-packaged

[Joe Allonby]

OK, now a politically incorrect response to all of this. I'm sure that you
will all hate me.

When I was a young child in a working class home with both parents working
full time jobs, hard-cover editions of the classics were expensive. We ate
macaroni and cheese and I'm allergic to dairy products for
chrissfuckingsake.I had a library card and I was (with my sisters) not just
encouraged but required to go to the library and withdraw at least one book
per week. Still, it was important to have books actually in the home that we
owned. So my parents mail-ordered the Readers Digest Condensed Classics.
Yes, they were inferior. I got to read works to which I would not have been
exposed otherwise. I'm sure that they were in my public library, but I wuld
not have taken it upon myself to look for them if I were unaware of their
existence.

So, there is a place for this sort of thing.

You may trash and flame me now.

Peace,
Joe
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20050922/12eda28e/attachment.html>