He would - at random - grab one volume, sit down in his beloved worn green armchair, light up a cigar, and start reading from page 1. The only one who ever voluntarily opened a “Compton’s” tome was my father. “Buy NOW!!!” And buy now my mother dutifully did.įor each grade-school geography and history report, I knelt and prayed at the altar/bookshelf of “Compton’s.” So too, for each high-school literature and science report, my brother turned first to “Compton’s” for guidance and counsel. Over at our working-class manse, we owned “ Compton’s Encyclopedia.” We were a Compton’s house, because my fourth-grade teacher strong-armed all the class parents into buying “Compton’s,” saying it was “the best” and “essential for our academic well-being.” Even then, I sensed a kick-back scam.Īnd with each purchase came the annual obligation and angst to buy the yearbook update. If you were middle class, your bookshelf groaned under a more modest brand, the “World Book.” If your parents - and, by extension, you - were really ritzy and a bunch of smarty-pants to boot, you were a Britannica household. In my pre-Internet world, “Encyclopedia Britannica” was king. Jews are often called the “People of the Book,” a reference to our reverence for sacred writings, but in my nonobservant childhood home, the book we turned to most frequently was the encyclopedia.
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