Her: I was reading about the changing face of Sweden today.
Mr. Waffle and me: What?
Her: Well, it was all that was left in the school library* that I hadn’t read.
Me: Really, you’ve read everything else?
Her: Well, no, it was either that or the Donald Duck archaeology book.
*This, regrettably, means a largish bookshelf in her classroom rather than a room full of books.
The paucity of my boarding house library at school is the reason why I have a deep and abiding knowledge of Readers’ Digest c.1968-1973 (& they were old then…) I read them in rotation to give myself a chance to forget the older issues before I had to resort to them again. In the end my parents gave me a subscription to it so that I would have a monthly supply of fresh issues to read. I like to think that, back in the same boarding house there is a little girl who is staving off boredom with copies of Readers’ Digest c. 1982-85
Oh God, Readers’ Digest; did it in fact pay to improve our word power? Answers on a postcard please.