Things are really nasty in Pleasantville these days. The Reader's Digest Association, best known for its pocket-size magazine, is in a state of protracted turmoil. The sputtering 76-year-old publisher founded to "inform, enrich, entertain and inspire people" has lately just incited a group of big-game-hunting shareholders, who want to see the Digest company restructured or sold. "This is a company that has been asleep," says Nell Minow, a principal of Lens, an activist Washington-based money manager with a substantial stake in the firm. "We are trying to bring them into the 20th century before we get to the 21st."
In the...