Talk:World's Best Reading

Incorrect Publishing Date
A Study In Scarlet/The Hound Of The Baskervilles is listed as being published in 2011, but I own a copy from 1991. I'm not sure if this is a mistake in the article, or they published it more than once in this series.

Untitled
The following is a list of the books in the Readers Digest Worlds Best Reading series that I have in my collection and which do not appear in the Readers Digest official list. The dates listed are those given in the books that I possess and may be reprints of earlier editions.

No    AUTHOR                  TITLE                                   DATE 1    Louisa May Alcott       Little Men                              2006 2    Jane Austen             Mansfield Park                          2005 3    John Buchan             The Thirty-Nine Steps & Greenmantle     1994 4    Marcus Clarke           For the Term of his Natural Life        1987 5    Frank Dalby Davidson    Dusty & Man Shy                         1993 6    John Galsworthy         The Man of Property                     2006 7    Kenneth Grahame         The Wind in the Willows                 1993 8    Thomas Hardy            The Mayor of Casterbridge               1999 9    James Hilton            Lost Horizon & Goodbye Mr. Chips        1997 10    Jerome K. Jerome        Three Men in a Boat & Three Men on a Bummell                 1998 11    Gaston Leroux           The Phantom of the Opera                2007 12    Steele Rudd             On Our Selection & Our New selection    1990 13    Anthony Trollope        Barchester Towers                       1996

Not included in the above list are the following four books which I have never seen although I have seen Frankenstein advertised for sale on the internet.

1    Mary Shelley            Frankenstein                            2003 2    Joseph Conrad           Lord Jim                                2003 3    Somerset Maugham        The Moon and Sixpence                   2004 4    Sinclair Lewis          Main Street                             2004

It is a great pity that Readers Digest have felt it necessary to discontinue this series as these books were very well produced and all in the same format makes them look very good in the bookcase. I could think of at least another 100 books to add to the series.

Series canceled?
This article said the series was canceled in 2006, but according to the discussion of collectors at LibraryThing (see external links), it is still going, in fact the on-going series was mentioned in a recent SEC filing (see LibraryThing for link), in case a source is needed. -- 71.191.42.242 (talk) 01:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Book List Removed By Anonymous Member?
In looking at the history for this page, I see that the list of the books in this series was removed by an anonymous editor in November of 2007 because it was erroneous. While that may be true, is there any reason the list cannot be restored and the work continue to correct and complete the list? Why remove it all together?

While it's true that the people at LibraryThing have done a lot of work trying to get this sorted out, the thread on that site discussing this matter is very difficult to follow. I'd like to know what the objections are (if any) to having the results of that work posted here in a more usable format.

There were some complaints at LibraryThing that the list was removed, and those complaints give the impression that there was some administrative intervention involved, but I don't see any evidence of that. Am I missing something?

I don't know if those people (those involved in the LibraryThing discussion) didn't restore it because they didn't know how, or if there was other discussion (not evident here) that took place elsewhere? Tamblyne (talk) 04:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Book List Restored
I've created a spreadsheet of the known publications in this series and restored it to the page after receiving feedback from Gtstricky. Tamblyne (talk) 18:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It is now a year later and out of date. The LibraryThing thread in the External Links seems to be the most lively place to find the most up to date list of books in WBR. Green Cardamom (talk) 03:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, which isn't to say the list here isn't accurate, it is, just needs expanding with the latest volumes. Green Cardamom (talk) 03:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)