Comments on: Paperback Book Club

By: Bill D.

Bill D. — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:50:16 +0000

I just requested this one from someone on Bookmooch.

By: Brian Smith

Brian Smith — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:06:01 +0000

I was at an independent bookstore in Arkansas a couple of years ago and I picked up a couple of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that they either put back into print in 2006/2007 or revived the brand to publish. Here now is my conversation with the store owner:

Her: “Oh, these are wonderful! They were really big in the 1980s!”
Me: “Yeah, I had a couple! It’s nice to see them again.”
Her: “What they DO is let you figure out your own way through the book.”
Me: “Yep, ‘choose your own adventure.’”
Her: “You’ll get to the bottom of the page, and there’ll be a couple of options — if you want to do one thing, you go to one page, and if you want to do another, you go to THAT page.”
Me: “Yeah, I remember these.”
Her: “So you can read the book, and then you can read it AGAIN, and it’ll have a different ending!”
Me: “*sigh*”

By: Anonymous Bosch

Anonymous Bosch — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:02:47 +0000

I have a complete collection of #1-#31 boxed away somewhere. #31 was the particularly bad ‘Vampire Express’, and I felt like I’d grown out of the series by then.

I also remember ‘The Horror Of High Ridge’ as being far too intense for a kid’s book, considering I was watching gory horror films at the time that didn’t creep me out the way that one did.

By: Shon

Shon — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:21:52 +0000

The ending I remember most was an option to “explain who did it” way before you had the clues to do so. It was a short page with a picture of you on the phone. The ending read, “You call the police and explain how it was done.”

Take that you juvenile cheaters hoping to bluff your way to the good ending.

By: Evan Waters

Evan Waters — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:23:31 +0000

Wow, the literary ending!

By: Matthew A.

Matthew A. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:54:12 +0000

Ah, that brings back fond memories of many a Saturday afternoon trip to the library…

Do you remember one called “The Horror of High Ridge”? That one struck me as particularly intense. Of course, I was ten years old at the time. I’d love to find a copy to see how it holds up.