Significantly, they have the same dust jacket art

March 21, 2024 4:20 AM

"The book club edition. You probably remember your first encounter with this indecent denizen of the book world. It wasn't pleasant, was it? Learning that your priceless first edition─the one you had considered selling so you could buy that NHL skybox─was...what? Worthless? Really? Why, you wondered, is this sneaky breed of book imposter allowed to trick and taunt the hapless collector? Why are book club editions even a thing?"

Do you know how to identify book club editions? Collecting the Science Fiction Book Club is its own thing (also: part II). Agatha Christie omnibus editions are also their own thing. The subject of collecting book club editions comes up on discussion forums. Book club editions are considered by some to be a pitfall when book collecting. Some book club editions are actually worth something.

posted by cupcakeninja (34 comments total)

I forget sometimes that book collecting--as in, collecting a book as an object of value, rather than something to add to your tottering to-be-read stack--is a thing that people do. But it's harder to picture someone interested in book collecting who did not know about book club editions?

Obviously this is not a One True Method for detecting book club books, but if you've handled them enough you retain a sort of sense memory for the flimsier dustjackets of some of the publishers, the way they feel different in the hand, with less heft--and, more concretely, how small and uniform they are!

I always kind of liked them! If you were broke and scrounging around used bookstores, paperbacks that had passed through a million hands could be in pretty bad shape, but the book club books were generally sturdier (albeit more expensive). (and if you were broke but had a little more book money than usual, you could join a book club and get, y'know, five books for a penny or whatever it was as an introductory offer. QPBC and SFBC were great for that.) And now, thanks to that first link, I understand why some of the covers had that inside corner cut off!
posted by mittens at 4:47 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]

There’s a bibliomystery I remember reading (maybe John Dunning?) where the plot hinges on a guy who mimicked his wealthy neighbor’s exquisite collection of modern firsts with an equally pristine but much more affordable collection of book clubs, and in the denouement it’s used to trick the villain into believing that the rich guy’s collection is worthless so he’ll leave it to the bookseller hero.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:48 AM on March 21 [12 favorites]

Oh! This is news to me. I had no idea there were such things. And I'm a heavy reader. I do recall the Readers Digest thing that had abridged versions of 4 or 5 novels in one hardcover book. My pretend girlfriend's family collected them, along with Precious Moments figurines.
posted by Czjewel at 5:36 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Wow, yeah, Reader's Digest Condensed Books! Growing up, everyone had them, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone reading them? They could be full of lorem ipsum for all we know--nobody would ever find out! The perfect literary crime!
posted by mittens at 5:56 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]

When I had two SF novels published separately back in the 90s, the publisher also, shortly afterwards, contracted them as an alternate SF book club selection with a different main title (inadvertently giving my novels a series title) and a different cover (equally terrible compared to the original covers), an action that I never quite understood though I was proud to have a hardback to show off when I gave talks at bookstores.

I know that when I was a good deal younger, I used to subscribe to the SF book club, and discovered a lot of good authors that way. I guess they were some kind of marketing?
posted by Peach at 6:24 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Wow, yeah, Reader's Digest Condensed Books! Growing up, everyone had them, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone reading them?

I absolutely read them, and still do! I don’t recall seeing them at people’s homes, but at places like resort hotels or beach houses. They are perfect for reading when I have some free time but not enough to finish an entire book. And in at least one instance (a bestselling biography of heart surgeon Denton Cooley) I was intrigued enough to find and read the actual book. As for book clubs, my parents were in the BOMC in the 1970s; I remember we got the Oxford English Dictionary, shrunk down to 2 volumes, for joining. It came with a magnifying glass for reading the incredibly small type. But a great reference to have around, especially in the pre-internet era!
posted by TedW at 6:25 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

This edition of the OED, in case anyone is curious. We kept ours in much better condition; I wonder where it is now.
posted by TedW at 6:29 AM on March 21

SFBC was foundational for me as a kid growing up in western Kansas, discovered a lot of authors that way, felt so grown up picking my books out.
posted by astrospective at 6:30 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

Books??? Ah yes, my great grandpappy told me about these objects that oldtimers used to value. Has anyone seen an actual example? Are they those things that smell funny?
posted by fairmettle at 6:42 AM on March 21

Why are book club editions even a thing?

I understand folks' surprise at this, and to a point appreciate this explainer, but it falls down for me with its focus on book collecting, especially the financial experience. You want to know why book club editions were a thing, at least for this kid of the '80s growing up in a small Arkansas town with a good but limited library? Because it made books affordable for me. The aforementioned Quality Paperback Book Club and Science Fiction Book Club helped keep me in books and introduce me to a wealth of authors I never would have come across otherwise. I've still got and treasure many of them.

I try to be understanding of folks who view books primarily for their financial value, but good goddamn, does this "why even were there cheap versions for the poors?" get up my craw.
posted by sgranade at 7:00 AM on March 21 [19 favorites]

As a longtime collector of other things, reading about collecting in general tends to be fun and interesting, so thanks for this post!

The book club problem seems unique to this hobby; there are budget reissues for other collectibles (the PlayStation "Greatest Hits" budget line comes to mind for video games), but they are typically very easy to spot. However, just like with book club editions, some video game budget reissues can be valuable.

I'm glad that a lot of posters here have found personal value in book club editions. Budget reissues of any kind certainly have their place, whether or not you're of the collecting mindset.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:11 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I remember when I first started working at a big-chain bookstore in the early '00s, we had a certain number of folks attempting return-fraud by bringing in big shopping bags full of hardcover books (sans receipts, naturally) and trying to return them for store credit, or (if they were especially ballsy) actual cash.

In almost all cases, they were bringing us the cheap, flimsy book club editions of current best-sellers, which they had clearly bought for pennies by opening multiple book club memberships, and we would basically say "nice try, but no" and point them over to Half Price Books down the street.

In one notable case, the would-be returner was the evening news anchor for our local FOX affiliate, a real stuffed-shirt Ron Burgundy/Ted Baxter type. It gave us so much joy to turn that guy away, and we all had our own theories about what he might have needed the extra cash for.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:16 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

More cheaply produced club editions are also a thing with music collecting. Record and CD club pressings were often of lower quality and sometimes don't sound or look as nice as the label pressings. When I worked at a music store we bought and sold used music, but wouldn't accept record club versions.
posted by indexy at 7:31 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Lately I've found book club editions useful for a revised version of one of their original features--affordability. I used to find it convenient to get a book club omnibus edition of SFF novels or collections, often with an equally or differently attractive cover to the covers on the mass market paperbacks. Lately, though, I've been finding that some of the books published around when I was born or the decades immediately prior have become scarce or collectible -- things that I remember being $1-$2 at the used book store when I was a teenager are now anything from $5 to $50 on eBay, often in editions that have gone brittle, dark, or are otherwise a challenge to read. These are often books I've never read, that I just said "hmm, I'll read that one day." Now here it is, finally "one day," and these things are expensive, out of print, not available in good digital editions, etc. SFBC editions, not generally being considered "collectible" and tending, even now, to be pretty numerous, fit my needs perfectly.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:32 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

I have a mismatched collection of Lord of the Rings mass market paperbacks on my shelf. Fellowship is 41st printing from 1973, $.95. Towers is 53rd printing, 1976, $1.95. Return is 78th printing, 1986, $3.95. Today’s editions are $7.99.
posted by rikschell at 7:53 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

So book club editions are notably worse quality with thin boards, cheap paper, and blown glue bindings, but they were great for a family of voracious SF readers with limited pocket money, and we had a pretty good library a few blocks away. I read a bunch of stuff by people who I would have never paid real money for (or forgot to send in the exempt card on time) because they were there. Honestly, they’re just the book version of modern subscription boxes, but they are actual bargains….

I suspect I might be able to ID book club versions by nostalgia and smell…
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:20 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

My father was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club and their editions were all over the house when I was growing up. On my own I observed they were of worse quality compared to the same titles in the library, and rather than flimsy dust jackets the difference I noted was the irregular edges of the pages opposite the binding.
posted by Rash at 9:18 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Wow. This guy does not like book clubs.

My middle-class house sure had a couple of them going and it was always exciting when the catalog arrived - did the main selection sound cool? was there anything else interesting? Cheap books for me to read! Yay! Collecting? What's that? I just want to read the book, I don't care if it's a first edition. If anything I'd rather it not be a special precious irreplaceable thing that I have to treat like a museum piece.

> I guess some people just prefer that other people curate their entertainment for them. Like how when a song that you like comes on the radio it's more enjoyable than if you had played the same song off a CD. That's probably a bad example.

One of the things I really miss from when I subscribed to several of the SF digest magazines was the review columns. Now there's just this huge torrent of stuff and I just haven't found a new source of reviews that fits into my life the way the review columns did. So yes, cranky book dealer in 2018, having someone whose job is to keep up with what's coming out and say "hey I think you might like this book that you wouldn't have heard of otherwise" is useful. This is even a thing bookshops have been doing forever - if you're a regular, the staff might suggest things to you; they put cards on the shelves highlighting things the staff loves; they'll have tables full of their recommendations along with tables full of the hot bestsellers. I dunno what's up with this enjoying a song more because it came up on the radio than if you'd put on that album thing though. That's weird.
posted by egypturnash at 9:37 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

I dunno what's up with this enjoying a song more because it came up on the radio than if you'd put on that album thing though. That's weird.

I own basically everything Rifftrax has ever released, and have it downloaded on a computer next to my TV, but when I sit down in the evening, I often check the Rifftrax channel on Pluto TV first, to see if it will serendipitously be showing something I’d like to watch. Deciding is a mental effort I may or may not feel like making.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:16 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

Reader's Digest Condensed Books! Growing up, everyone had them, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone reading them?

Oh, man. These and the Bible were just about all the books my grandparents owned, and you better believe I read through them on boring visits. ("Them" including the Bible cover-to-cover.) What else was I supposed to do???
posted by praemunire at 10:38 AM on March 21

Ah, book club editions. As a teenager the Science Fiction Book Club was my gateway to a lot of sf: low cost (crucial for me then) and introducing me to things I didn't see at the library.

Later in my life I worked at a used bookshop and book club editions were... interesting. We sold some as low-cost editions. I learned the many ways of distinguishing trade from book club copies, which meant this post gave me serious nostalgia.

There's a set of year when SFBC titles were especially flimsy, and I swore I could feel the acid in the pages tingling in my fingers.
posted by doctornemo at 10:55 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Reader's Digest Condensed Books! Growing up, everyone had them, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone reading them?
I would never have read The Scarlet Pimpernel without a shelf of them in a rented house in Vermont we inexplicably ended up in for a couple of months when I was about 10. I still love the Scarlet Pimpernel even though adult me finds his politics a bit, um, suspect. No, Percy! Go ahead and guillotine the aristos! It will work out better in the long run!

I too worked at a used bookshop and learned the ways of book club editions. People would get so mad when we offered less trade credit and no cash for them. We put them on the $1 fiction bargain cart unless they were brand spanking new and even then, $5. I still have some of the trade paperbacks I got from the QPBC back in the 90s; they've actually held up pretty well.
posted by mygothlaundry at 11:34 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Reader's Digest Condensed Books!

Yes, mom had a bunch and I absolutely read some. One stuck with me enough to try to find it later, but never found it. I believe it was called "Blockbuster". Ohhhh I think it's this one!
posted by Glinn at 12:18 PM on March 21

And here is the volume it was in. Wow.
posted by Glinn at 12:19 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Early Terry Pratchett discworld books had book club editions in America, and someone once dropped off a bag of them in the library donation box where I worked in high school.They went on the friends of the library shelf and I bought all of them, I still have them, I was so grateful for a chance to read those books when I didn’t have another way to get a hold of them. Many years later I brought a few to a signing and Terry was delighted to see those old terrible covers, it’s a lovely memory.
posted by lepus at 12:53 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

The Quality Paperback Book Club used to be very good. I do not if they exist any longer.
posted by DJZouke at 12:53 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Someday book club editions will become super valuable. I don't know exactly how or when this will occur, but the things that are common and worthless regularly become collectable as these undervalued objects are disposed of until, BOOM, collectable.
posted by cccorlew at 3:37 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I grew up in a house with a deep upstairs linen closet, the lower shelf was 2 books deep of Readers Digest Condensed Books. I think they came from grandparents, and probably my mother got them eventually. I read all of them, confused as hell by some of the assertions about "this modern world" until I realized they were talking about, oh, 1952, something. I still have my all time favorite, it has The Scarlet Pimpernel, Tom Sawyer, The Good Earth, and The Adventures of Robin Hood, all with illustrations.
In my current house, I only have 1 book that is "worth" anything, albeit not much more than what I paid for it. But I bought it for the illustrations, I just can't have a book and not open it, not read it, not be with it.
posted by winesong at 3:58 PM on March 21

Wow, yeah, Reader's Digest Condensed Books! Growing up, everyone had them, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone reading them?

I did, when I was young. The most memorable was Audrey Erskine Lindop's I Start Counting, a British murder mystery that had some absolutely hilarious moments. Decades later I sought out the unabridged version of the novel and was disappointed.
posted by lhauser at 7:58 PM on March 21

Reader's Digest Condensed Books: my Russian immigrant grandparents had some (alongside a big collection of the Little Lenin Library). I remember reading into them when I visited as a bored kid and being surprised at how easy they were.

I think my grandparents may have gotten them to practice reading English while getting into American culture.
posted by doctornemo at 12:49 PM on March 22

I remember "The Literary Guild" being the main alternative to "Book of the Month Club". I enjoyed pouring over the lists in their ads and comparing them to The New York Times bestsellers lists. The initial deal was pretty amazing-- ten books for 99¢.

How could you not love them?
posted by notmtwain at 4:28 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

TBH, I loved the ads, catalogues, and "window shopping" factor for these sorts of things almost as much as the acquisition and reading. (See also: scholastic book fair)
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:52 AM on March 23

Little Lenin Library

The...what?
posted by mittens at 9:33 AM on March 23

Someday book club editions will become super valuable.

SFBC editions are increasingly scarce. There's still a fair supply of unpopular titles in thrift stores around here, but popular titles in used book stores are generally $10+. Most of the ones I'd like to reacquire I haven't seen in many, many years.
posted by neuron at 11:55 AM on March 23