The Economist - Simply the best reporting on world affairs there is.
Playboy, Entertainment Weekly - Touchstones for popular culture
Cook’s, Bon Appetit, F&W - Touchstones for popular eating
SI, Renaissance, MEN, Westways - Strictly of interest to me
**Guns & Ammo, American Handgunner ** - How else are you going to know what’s best for fending of zombies?
Although apparently they read Cecil: the Fact Library for 7 May seems rather familiar…
A magazine I got as a subscription on a whim I’ve absolutely loved: Discover. I consider it a must have science magazine. I love how they can make nearly any scientific article accessable to those without a science background. The editorial policy seems to be that with every invention or research project, there must be an explanation as to how it can be applied to future developments or our day to day lives. I used to read every single article in the magazine and even now 4 years later I still keep old copies of the magazine for reference.
I won a subscription to Fitness, a few months ago. That and my subscription to Cooking Light, have changed my life. I only thought I was eating healthy and getting enough exercise before. Now, I’m actually seeing and feeling results.
The problem with a lot of these choices is that it’s too easy to remember when these same magazines were a lot better.
The New Yorker hasn’t been an institution since the 1950s but even so the recent issues have been awful: thin and poorly imagined.
Discover hasn’t ever recovered from being sold to Bob Guccione Jr. and being put on a starvation budget. It can’t pay for the better writers any more, and it too has gotten thin in size and power.
Entertainment Weekly is consistently good, but it spends too much time pandering to whatever is momentarily popular. Maybe their true fans need 20 pages of American Idol or the Sopranos or Lost every few months but the rest of the world doesn’t. Note over in Entertainment Weekly’s Top 25 Sci-Fi Movies/TV Shows of the Last 25 Years what a truly pathetic, horrible job they did on a softball subject.
I’ve thought about it and I realized there’s one magazine I turn to for solid material I can’t get better anywhere else. American Heritage Invention and Technology. The American Heritage magazine itself has diminished greatly in quality since Forbes bought it a few years ago, and that’s not even getting into the right-wing pixie dust they sprinkle over the entire magazine. But the quarterly spin-off is truly first rate and I only wish it came out far more frequently.
The big problem with almost all magazines is that advertisers are abandoning them. Since virtually all magazines depend almost entirely on advertising for profitability (subscribers basically pay the printing bills and not much more) all the magazines are hurting for money. They keep being sold to people who try to put them out ever more cheaply and that’s just a death spiral. Premiere, still the best popular movie magazine, went out of business with no notice and subscribers were switched over to … US magazine. US magazine, the magazine for people who like People magazine but don’t want to be bothered by all those words. That’s the future, my friends.
Couple thoughts.
I’m surprised that no one has pleaded a case for Rolling Stone. I’m not a fan nor am I very informed about music and the music industry, but I had the sense that many people would still want to argue that it’s still eminently relevant and timely. It’s probably fair to say that it was once on the Mt. Rushmore of Magazines and that it’s perhaps fallen that far is surprising.
Much the same could be asked of Sports Illustrated. This however is a topic that I do know a ton about and I understand why it’s not on the list. Part of it is because the quality and relevance has diminished greatly, but the bigger issue is that sports on the whole has become much more immediate. The internet and 24-hour sports TV have robbed much of what made SI great, that it was able to succinctly deliver the most important and compelling topics to sports fans in full color. When compared to partisan local newspapers this seemed like the big time and it’s opinions could be treated as authority or at least consensus. ESPN.com and ESPN tag teamed to make SI feel outdated and behind the times almost overnight.
Time seemed like a likely candidate and it’s “of the Year” issues are still headline news. I haven’t read it outside of the dentists office in years so perhaps it’s dipped in stature more than I realize. While you could argue that CNN and it’s clones killed it like ESPN did SI, but Time always seemed like it was valuable in how it was able to distill current events into coherent stories that invoked emotion. The fact that it lacked immediacy wasn’t really a flaw, but instead a strength because it allowed the writes and the audience time and distance to gain perspective on events and really see the big picture which I appreciate more than the shock and awe of Fox News and it’s ilk.
I do generally agree that The New Yorker*, Playboy and Entertainment Weekly probably qualify. They each might be lesser things than they were years ago, but I think they still stand head and shoulders above their peers. The magazine industry might be dying a slow death, but the true giants will die slower than the rest.
I’m struggling with the suggestions of various cooking mags, my gut instinct tells me that this is too much of a niche item to be a “must have” but then the little voice in my head points out the everyone eats and with the pop-culture impact of celeb-chefs constantly growing it seems to be finding a broadness similar to that of sports and TV rags. I’m not sure it’s mainstream enough to qualify as a must have, but I’m open to suggestion. Perhaps part of my hesitation is that I’d expect visitors to tease me about wanting to be some Martha Stewart disciple if they saw it on my counter.
National Geographic seems like a no-brainer.
Uhmm, word. I’m totally behind on my subscription but I refuse to skip, 'cause I want to enjoy every bit of it.
Also, Metropolitan Home, when I can find the time.
Couple thoughts.
I’m surprised that no one has pleaded a case for Rolling Stone. I’m not a fan nor am I very informed about music and the music industry, but I had the sense that many people would still want to argue that it’s still eminently relevant and timely. It’s probably fair to say that it was once on the Mt. Rushmore of Magazines and that it’s perhaps fallen that far is surprising.
Much the same could be asked of Sports Illustrated. This however is a topic that I do know a ton about and I understand why it’s not on the list. Part of it is because the quality and relevance has diminished greatly, but the bigger issue is that sports on the whole has become much more immediate. The internet and 24-hour sports TV have robbed much of what made SI great, that it was able to succinctly deliver the most important and compelling topics to sports fans in full color. When compared to partisan local newspapers this seemed like the big time and it’s opinions could be treated as authority or at least consensus. ESPN.com and ESPN tag teamed to make SI feel outdated and behind the times almost overnight.
Time seemed like a likely candidate and it’s “of the Year” issues are still headline news. I haven’t read it outside of the dentists office in years so perhaps it’s dipped in stature more than I realize. While you could argue that CNN and it’s clones killed it like ESPN did SI, but Time always seemed like it was valuable in how it was able to distill current events into coherent stories that invoked emotion. The fact that it lacked immediacy wasn’t really a flaw, but instead a strength because it allowed the writes and the audience time and distance to gain perspective on events and really see the big picture which I appreciate more than the shock and awe of Fox News and it’s ilk.
I do generally agree that The New Yorker*, Playboy and Entertainment Weekly probably qualify. They each might be lesser things than they were years ago, but I think they still stand head and shoulders above their peers. The magazine industry might be dying a slow death, but the true giants will die slower than the rest.
I’m struggling with the suggestions of various cooking mags, my gut instinct tells me that this is too much of a niche item to be a “must have” but then the little voice in my head points out the everyone eats and with the pop-culture impact of celeb-chefs constantly growing it seems to be finding a broadness similar to that of sports and TV rags. I’m not sure it’s mainstream enough to qualify as a must have, but I’m open to suggestion. Perhaps part of my hesitation is that I’d expect visitors to tease me about wanting to be some Martha Stewart disciple if they saw it on my counter.
National Geographic seems like a no-brainer.
deleted.
For me this list begins and ends with New Scientist. Readable, up to date, international in outlook, and just plain fun. Anything in it that piques your interest in what’s going on in science and technology you can research in depth elsewhere, but their breadth of coverage every week is terrific.
Deleted.
I understand your point, but it’s not what I want in my NatGeo - have Time for that, if I still wanted it. I want NatGeo for beautiful photos of interesting stuff, not “America! Fuck Yeah!” articles (and there were more than one).
Like I said, I am still a subscriber, which is more than can be said for Time.
OP, I’d hardly think I’d need to say why National Geographic is a “must have” in spite of the flaws I perceive?. The White Dwarf thing was just for laughs.
Pardon the hijack, but this really pisses me off. When I got the card saying they were fulfilling the remainder of my subscription with Us Weakly, I fel like I had just chewed on tinfoil. I fired off an angry email, saying I refused to have this trash in my house and I wanted a refund on my subscription, but I got no answer. Is there a way I can refuse these, so they have to pay return postage on them? This is a genuinely insulting move on the publishers part.
I don’t usually have the money for magazines.
If I could Have Subscriptions:
Mental_Floss (I had seen this magazine around, and I was able to get an issue once, I can’t get over how much stuff they are able to get into one issue. I love Scatterbrianed, 6 degrees, Interview with a dead person, and Know it all.)
Scrye (The Guide To Collectible Gaming)
Knucklebones (A Magazine about Boardgames, Cards, and Puzzles) - I had a subs here, but the magazine is 6 times a year.
Games Magazine, and it’s Sister Games World of Puzzles. (I’m kinda into board games, can you tell?)
And If I even More money:
Make Magazine. I am horrible with tools, but I just like the entire idea of the magazine.
Animation Magazine. (I’m 24, and Im watching Spongebob as I write this, I love ‘cartoons’, especially the jokes that kids dont get.)
Some poker Magazine. (I think there are like at least 4, I know they are out there. but again, never really took the time, or money.
I am the kiss of death for magazines. Usually when I find one that I love, it ends up getting bought out by others and turned into crap.
I was a charter subscriber to Omni back in the late 70’s. It was a wonderful, provocative magazine.
There was a terrific health magazine called Hippocrates. Intelligent articles on health topics, brilliant articles of offbeat health topics by Mary Roach (later to write the excellent book Stiff about what happens to dead bodies.) It changed its name to “In Health”, and then later “Health”. In its final incarnation, it started writing factoid style instead of articles, and hired two beauty editors. (Generally the kiss of death for magazines as far as I’m concerned.)
Walking magazine was an excellent health and fitness magazine, with lots of info on walking. (As you may have guessed, I’m a fan.) They got bought out by Readers Digest, hired beauty editors, and switched to the short-attention-span factoid style of writing.
Shape used to be a very good fitness magazine, with very good articles about fitness and exercise. Like others, they were overtaken by beauty editors, and the health aspects got overtaken by the appearance aspects.
Today, I read the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Nutrition Action Health Letter, Consumer Reports Health report, and the University of California at Berkeley’s Health letter for health and fitness information.
I also read Eating Well, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit for foodie pleasure.
Rolling Stone - meh. I am a musician and music nut but don’t find RS to be much more than a re-hash of Boomer icons coupled with titillating photos of the Chickie Flavor of the Month™. I buy it in airports when traveling, but don’t think it has been on the Mount Rushmore of Mags (nice phrase) for decades - just IMHO. The bummer is that I haven’t found a solid music mag - Spin, Blender, Giant, even Paste - nothing quite gets it right…I subscribe to Paste for now, but I am beginning to think that 95% of the artists it features I will never seek out.
As for **The New Yorker ** - Exapno, this is where we agree to disagree, as you and I are wont to do over many topics. In recent issues I have found a rich trove of topics - political, cultural, just plain quirky - all written with exceptional quality and insight and leaving me feeling like I was exposed to something worthwhile. I can’t comment on whether it is still “an institution” like it was in the 50’s, but it remains the most consistently-high-quality broad subject magazine I have encountered and that’s fine by me…
Architectural Digest - I can’t even watch many of the home decorating shows that are on TV now. They’ve taken sensibility and classic design and replaced them with ridiculous trendy schtick and ill-concieved, tomorrow’s wtf, dimestore gauche.
While I’ll never be able to afford the entirety of any home featured in AD, at least I can see what contributes to the many faces of comfortable, classic, long-lived design. The articles are well written, the arrangements are beautiful, for anything frilly there’s always a masculine offset and the ads feature the newest and best in things you can benefit from in your kitchen, living room or closet today, it’s the “good” stuff. Yes, much of it will always remain the things to dream for but there’s also much that you can employ right now.
I can’t figure out who Rolling Stones’ audience is today. Despite the “boomer icons” I don’t think anyone of my age - I got my first subscription in 1970 when a year cost $5 and they threw in a copy of Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers album! - reads the mag any more and young fans have a million other better sources for info on their music.
Reading The New Yorker is like panning for gold. You sort through tons of dross before finding a nugget. Maybe that’s all you remember afterward and it all seems worthwhile, but I remember all the energy expended on the dross. Probably just me: I’ve never been a fan. I grew up on Tom Wolfe’s Tiny Mummies land of the dead notion of Shawn’s New Yorker and read Esquire when it was the best. But they’re hurting too. They’ve starting trolling for subscriptions at the guaranteed lose money rate of 25 cents an issue. When you’re that desperate to keep up your ad base rates - and with issues are as thin as they are, meaning they aren’t getting much advertising as it is - the future looks bleak.
Askance, New Scientist is still among my favorites. Discover is circling the drain and as others have said Scientific American made a deliberate decision a few years back to dumb down, er, popularize their articles which it has never recovered from. The problem with New Scientist is that they tend to run one or both of two styles of articles in every issue. The first is the “energy from used CDs will change the face of power plants!” article, which three pages in proves to be a lab bench experiment that hasn’t yet been scaled up to industrial size. The second is the “everything you know about how to sneeze is wrong!” article which takes some outlier scientist’s theory and gives it prominence no one else believe it deserves. Looks good on covers and sells magazines, but the articles are like diet soda. They leave a bad aftertaste and have no real nutrition.
There are some good small scale science magazines, like MIT’s Technology Review or The Scientist or Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists or Physics Today, that have some solid stuff in them but they’re frankly too dull and boring to reach outside the scientific communities they’re aimed at.
I’m sure I qualify as a “Boomer.” Rolling Stone started losing musical “relevance” in the mid 70’s. Creem was a better source of music news. For intellectual moments, there was Crawdaddy. When the punk thing started happening, NME was educational. (Even though this fogie was more interested in types like Nick Lowe than the hardcore crowd.)
But Rolling Stone printed some fine non-musical journalism. It still does, on occasion.
Texas Music interests me–as a Texan. The editors are educating their readers about “locals” who are not Willie Nelson. No Depression has its moments; but it gets all reverential about folks I heard play Back In the Day. (I said I’m a fogie. I’m even, sometimes, a folkie.)
I agree that The New Yorker is truly excellent. But, as a weekly, it tends to pile up. There’s always one article that I’ll get around to reading! Once I clear out some space, I may subscribe again.
Current subscriptions include Juxtapoz. Yes, the current art scene includes some pretty interesting stuff.
And Vanity Fair. For great political writing. Plus glossy fashion ads & articles that satisfy my frivolous need to see what The Quality are up to.
I also disagree with at least the latter part of this. I don’t see the recent issues as having been any worse than at any point in the last few years. Nothing approaches the nadir of the Tina Brown period. But it is true that this is a much tougher environment for both magazines and newspapers than it used to be. Eking out a niche in the world of content is harder than ever. That said, I think The New Yorker has done a decent job at remaining relevant. Even the cartoons are widely recognized outside the confines of the two covers.