I’ve been looking for decent literary magazines and noticed that TNY has several noted authors who submit stories to it. I picked up a copy and found many of the articles and stories interesting.
Is it superior to Harper’s or are there any other magazines you would recommend?
Does it have a particular political bent?
Any information would be helpful.
I have subscribed to The New Yorker since 1956.
It is the last magazine subscription I have. At one them in the 60s I may have subscribed to a dozen or so.
I think it was better than Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly. I don’t know about the last ten year so so.
If you tastes tend toward The New Yorker and Harper’s you may be interested in checking out Arts & Letters Daily
I recommend that you go to the New Yorker website and read some of their content free online, so you can see what you think of it.
They definitely publish some superb fiction and commentary of various kinds, as well as information about New York art and performance events, but I don’t really know what your criteria for a “worthy read” are.
If witty and urbane are in your vocabulary, it is probably the magazine for you. Heck, if somnombulist is in your vocabulary, it probably is the magazine for you.
I love The New Yorker - I save the night it arrives for a quick sorting of the contents and cartoon review. Smart, thoughtful - a national treasure.
I like the New Yorker. A friend gives me a subscription for xmas every year.
The politics are liberal, the articles are always smart (and run longer than you expect, which I think is a point of pride for the magazine.)
It’s not as design-heavy as most magazines. There’s a sense of graphic restraint. The writing is careful and precise, but the editors have no problems with fuck, cunt, shit or anything else a writer feels is necessary to describe a situation.
I don’t look at every article anymore ( life has gotten busy) but always check out every cartoon, the cartoon contest on the last page, and look at the cover (which is usually puckish and nicely rendered.)
If I’m rushing out of the house for an appointment I’ll fold a recent issue into my fannypack/camera bag, in case I end up in a waiting room.
Very pretentious but the articles are written for grown-ups and assume that you can remember what you read in the last paragraph. Very liberal and always seem to focus on race/sexuality somehow no matter what they are discussing. Good read though.
I’ve been a subscriber for a pretty long time and I do recommend it. The long form reporting is my favorite. Seems like Jon Lee Anderson just gets airdropped into a different tumultuous country every few months and comes out with a story about the huge complexities of a situation. (Usually it sounds like the country in question is screwed, but still, the reporting is impressive.)
This is still my favorite New Yorker story: “Tigerland” by Caroline Alexander.
This is why TNY is the only magazine I still subscribe to. It is indeed a National Treasure.
It comes out every week which is just too much of a commitment for me (same reason I don’t subscribe to “The Economist”). We just barely get through our “Atlantic” every month.
However I generally grab some old ones when I’m at my mom’s and can always expect to find something well worth reading.
Absolutely. I’ve had a subscription for years and read every article other than the fiction.
I subscribe to Wired as well, and they are both Conde-Nast magazines so they cross-promote. My Wired subscription often has an amazing New Yorker subscription deal of $25 for a year, nearly half of the regular $47 subscription offer.
Yes. I’ve subscribed for well over a decade now. I used to read the cartoons when I was a kid–my parents are long time subscribers and used to give me a sub every Xmas.
I don’t really enjoy TNY’s fiction much. I find it abstruse and precious (quite a feat, but they manage). I really like their current news stories and their profiles. I also like their humor bits, and Talk of the Town (editorials).
And no one has better cartoons. I have several of their collections. Those alone are National Treasures and true windows into social commentary.
The New Yorker was the first magazine I subscribed to in 1980 when I got a job and had money. Before then I read them in the university library. I’ve had a subscription ever since except for a short period when that woman was the editor, thankfully now in the past.
Like all magazines, they are much smaller now than they were in the 1980s when they would serialize entire John McPhee books and other good stuff like The Eighth Day of Creation. I used to read every word of an issue, but don’t have time for that any more. Besides the excellent articles, they have about the best arts reporting I know of.
Also, Sid Perelman is long dead. alas, but Woody Allen shows up every so often.
I’ve been subscribing for years. It has some of the best writing of any American magazine. Their “Financial Page” always has surprising insights on finance and the economy and the articles are all first-rate.
Same here. I often give the fiction a try, and every so often I end up reading it, but usually it’s the weakest part of the magazine.
And how about Anthony Lane’s movie reviews? He is SO good.
The quality of the editing is probably the defining characteristic of the magazine. The articles have a consistent “voice” and structure and are wonderfully readable. I suppose some writers would consider the editing heavy-handed but the end result is worth it.
I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker for about 25 years now. A national treasure, indeed. The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic set the bar for intelligent, informed magazines. I do wish their editorializing wouldn’t be so predictable (all Republican politicians are treated with condescension as people elected by them, out there, Not Our Kind), and I always skip over their fiction (unless it’s a humor piece).
I think one of my favorite things about the New Yorker is that they run the complete article before they start the next one - so there is no ‘continued on page 56’ or any crap like that. You get the whole article, and then the next one, and so on.
I also enjoy doing the Cartoon Caption contest every week, even though I rarely actually send one in.
I like Harper’s and The New Yorker about equally. I skip some things in The New Yorker, though – the New York gallery listings and the fiction, for instance. The articles and “Talk of the Town” are good, though.
Agreed on both counts - The New York Times Sunday Mag does the “continued on page X” and I hate that. The editor lives up the block from me - I mentioned it and he said it has to do with the ads they run vs. The New Yorker…