Across the River
BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB: While looking over my bookshelf recently, I found my mom’s copy of the all-time classic Gone With the Wind. I remember when my mom was enrolled in the Book of the Month Club and received a different hard-cover book in the mail every month. I remember when she received A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The Book of the Month Club has been around since 1926. Subscribers could choose any one of the five to seven titles per month, increasing the sales of books. The Club mostly offered books by new authors and launched them into success just as it did for Margaret Mitchell. I’m not sure what happened to those books. We also had a few Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Each of the volumes had three, four or six current of best-selling novels which were abridged or condensed specifically for Reader’s Digest. RECORD OF THE MONTH CLUB: Back before they were called vinyls, there also was a Record of the Month Club. The subscriber could choose ten free record albums if they agreed to buy ten more during the next year. Subscribers could choose among many titles per month. Subscribers could choose among Glen Campbell, Liberace, Dionne Warwick, Pat Boone, Dean Martin, Sonny James, Nancy Sinatra, The Beatles, Jackie Gleason, the Beach Boys, Floyd Cramer, Loretta Lynn and many, many more. Although we never see the advertisements like we once did in just about every magazine and newspaper, there still are book and record of the month clubs today.
