What is in your magazine rack?

January 18, 2005 12:23 PM

What is in your magazine rack? |Mi|

I personally enjoy reading Smithsonian, Discover, Dwell and Vanity Fair, but am always on the lookout for something new and interesting. What periodicals consistently draw your attention?

posted by jazzkat11 to Media & Arts (66 answers total)

london review of books
posted by andrew cooke at 12:25 PM on January 18, 2005

Bitch, Bust, Vanity Fair, Wired (only because I received a free subscription), Real Simple and Smithsonian.
posted by govtdrone at 12:26 PM on January 18, 2005

maisonneuve.
posted by dabitch at 12:27 PM on January 18, 2005

Foreign Affairs.

Dwell.

Wired.
posted by bshort at 12:27 PM on January 18, 2005

Oh, and Dr. Dobbs.
posted by bshort at 12:28 PM on January 18, 2005

Previous magazine questions.
posted by smackfu at 12:29 PM on January 18, 2005

Response by poster: Ah. My bad - of course, I should have searched. Thanks Smackfu.
posted by jazzkat11 at 12:32 PM on January 18, 2005

The Believer
posted by paulychamp at 12:33 PM on January 18, 2005

National Geographic, Smithsonian, Architectural Digest, Reason, Esquire, Wine Spectator, The New Yorker, Golf and Golf Digest.
posted by mosch at 12:36 PM on January 18, 2005

National Geographic, Scientific American, various IEEE journals and GuitarOne.
posted by substrate at 12:52 PM on January 18, 2005

How could I forgotten The New Yorker? I have been subscribing to it for over 10 years.
posted by govtdrone at 12:54 PM on January 18, 2005

Me personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Make.

Also, I enjoy my weekly dispatch from The Nation.
posted by mds35 at 12:58 PM on January 18, 2005

A bunch everyone else will name, + Family Handyman - there's no better reference for fixing stuff around the house.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:59 PM on January 18, 2005

Architectural Digest, Blender, Business Week, Card Player, Cook's Illustrated, Details, Dwell, Economist, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN The Magazine, Esquire, Glamour, Golf, GQ, Maxim, Men's Health, National Geographic Explorer, Newsweek, Outside, Playboy, Portland Monthly, Premiere, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, The Week, Time, Tricycle, US News & World Report, Vanity Fair, Vitals, and Wired.

All are subscriptions. I also pick up a few others here and there when I need something else too. Oh, and yes, I realize I have a problem.
posted by ..ooOOoo....ooOOoo.. at 1:00 PM on January 18, 2005

The Santa Cruz Comic News; Couloir; Bike; Time; and the Victoria's Secret catalog.
posted by RockyChrysler at 1:01 PM on January 18, 2005

Maisonneuve : gave it as a gift subscription to a dozen people last year

Harpers : got it as a gift subscription this year

Besides that, the internet is my magazine.
posted by furtive at 1:01 PM on January 18, 2005

Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, and New Yorker.
posted by 31d1 at 1:05 PM on January 18, 2005

Real Simple
posted by Gooney at 1:05 PM on January 18, 2005

what 31d1 said, plus the NY Review of Books, Granta and Mother Jones
posted by matteo at 1:09 PM on January 18, 2005

New Yorker, Bitch, Oprah (I don't care! I know what you're thinking! It's great to read on the treadmill!) and, although I keep trying to cancel my subscriptions, National Geographic and Bon Appetit. If I'm done with Oprah at the gym I'll look for Esquire, which cracks me up for some reason.

I did get gift subscriptions one memorable year to the Mountain Astrologer, Atlantis Rising and Paranoia.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:12 PM on January 18, 2005

Fast Company, Wired, Golf Digest, The New Yorker, Acoustic Guitar.
posted by greasy_skillet at 1:13 PM on January 18, 2005

Cabinet Magazine
posted by fake at 1:15 PM on January 18, 2005

Really more of a pile than a rack: Wired, MIT Technology Review (free), Popular Science (free), Wireless Week, RCR Wireless News, Ready Made, Modern Painter, Harpers, NYT
posted by donovan at 1:16 PM on January 18, 2005

The New Yorker, The Economist, Metro (a local New Zealand magazine), The Independant (local business weekly), Linux Journal, and my GF's celebrity scandal rags.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:18 PM on January 18, 2005

Super7, Maxim, Giant Robot, Q, Found, Maximum Rocknroll
posted by quibx at 1:29 PM on January 18, 2005

Juggs, Swank, Watersports, The Nation
posted by Kwantsar at 1:32 PM on January 18, 2005

New Yorker (such a necessity, I believe), BUST, Cooking Light, Cook's Illustrated, Harper's, Budget Travel, Acoustic Guitar, and *gasp* Martha.

I used to get Real Simple, but after a while I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just bought a $5 catalog.
posted by Miko at 1:36 PM on January 18, 2005

Knitters, Interweave Knits, Family Circle Easy Knitting, Vogue Knitting, Threads, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking Light, Light and Tasty, Diane, The Toastmaster, Toronto Life, Ellery Queen and No Depression. I'm not much for general interest magazines, really.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:39 PM on January 18, 2005

Before & After (seen here), Readymade, Surface, V (for the big glossy pictures), and a few I'm not so proud of.
posted by hartsell at 1:41 PM on January 18, 2005

Carbon 14 , MOJO , and the latest catalog of BOMP! is a better read than most rags out there today. Oh Posey always has a copy of this layin' around as well.
posted by BMF at 1:43 PM on January 18, 2005

(We recently discussed this at Gapers Block.)

Saveur, Natural History, Discover, Venus and Chicago come to the house. I pick up Cook's Illustrated, Nest (though not anymore, since it's folded) and the occasional music mag.
posted by me3dia at 1:43 PM on January 18, 2005

Readymade (site).
posted by itchie at 1:46 PM on January 18, 2005

Wired, Videographer, Tape Op, The Onion Print version, various comic books.
posted by drezdn at 1:49 PM on January 18, 2005

I read far too many magazines! Many are subscriptions, some I pick up on the newsstand from time to time. Let's see, no particular order...

Time, Newsweek, Bitch, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Jane, Lucky, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, The Sporting News, Marie Claire, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Fast Company, Allure, Chicago, Mother Jones, The American Prospect, People...I think that covers most of them.

I also like to read the British versions of Glamour, Cosmo, and Marie Claire at the bookstore. They get free stuff with magazines over there! I wish we did!
posted by SisterHavana at 1:54 PM on January 18, 2005

(on preview, Kwanstar wins) My wife and I were just talking about how a look through our magazine pile (threatening to take over the living room) would pretty much tell the looker everything they needed to know about us (i.e. boring bourgeoisie):

Harper's, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Automobile, Gourmet, Road & Track, Granta, Wired, Metropolis, Four Four Two, F1, Communication Arts, Print, I.D., How, Dwell, Cooking Light, Saveur, Cook's Illustrated, Parents, Bike, Mountain Bike Action, Macworld, and Mac Addict

Yikes - And that's after culling a few that were getting rather stale (Spin, Rolling Stone, Car & Driver). I'm thinking we'll be able to send my daughter to college if we just stopped the magazines.
posted by jalexei at 1:58 PM on January 18, 2005

Also, I read The Believer, but the last issue doesn't seem to have Hornby's column. Does anyone know if he has stopped writing for them?
posted by drezdn at 1:59 PM on January 18, 2005

The Week.
posted by hsoltz at 2:07 PM on January 18, 2005

New Scientist. One a week for the next three years for me!
posted by tomble at 2:16 PM on January 18, 2005

• Architectural Digest
• Architectural Record
• Preservation
• National Review
• The Weekly Standard
• Cook's Illustrated

posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 2:38 PM on January 18, 2005

Mine: Inside Triathlon, Money, Outside, various athletic catalogs
Wife: Self, Shape, various homelife catalogs
posted by RobbyB at 2:45 PM on January 18, 2005

Forgot the Economist.

The web and Usenet have greatly reduced my magazine consumption for more esoteric areas - enthusiasts are putting on the web things that are more specialised and more up to date than what magazine writers can come up with. Sad, but good at the same time.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:05 PM on January 18, 2005

I like how you can cross over with people you'd expect to have nothing in common with (looking at S@L's list and Cook's Illustrated specifically)

I used to subscribe to The National Review to expose myself to different opinions. I gave it up when the discourse became less WFB Jr-ish and more nonsensically Coulter-ish and shrill.
posted by jalexei at 3:18 PM on January 18, 2005

I have a somewhat unrelated question, since we have magazine readers in here. What do you do with your old magazines? Is there any alternative to simply recycling them? I love to make collages (not so much the "bEsT FRienDZ forEvAR" type) and am always on the lookout for magazines that people are finished using. The only reliable place I've seen to get magazines no one wants is to check out the recycle bins near post office boxes, as people sometimes get trade mags they don't want from previous box owners.

Is there any sort of repository for people to pick up old magazines for free (either for reading or cutting apart)?
posted by pikachulolita at 3:18 PM on January 18, 2005

Try Freecycle, pikachulolita
posted by jacquilynne at 3:24 PM on January 18, 2005

New Yorker
Vanity Fair
The Wire
London Review Of Books
New York Review Of Books
Granta
Private Eye, which is an absolute essential.
Word.
posted by Len at 4:10 PM on January 18, 2005

The Big Takeover (Indie Rock, at length)
Gastronomica (Food/Cultural Studies)
Contemporary (Pretty pictures)
Others have mentioned Cabinet, New Scientist, New Yorker, and The Believer, all of which I heartily endorse.
posted by monocyte at 4:31 PM on January 18, 2005

Saveur, Cook's Illustrated, Granta, Utne Reader, Paris Review, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Spin, The Elle that's in French when I can get it, Magnet, Tape Op, The Believer, Vanity Fair, The Economist, The Nation, Bust, Vogue Knitting, and like people have said above Gourmet and Bon Appetit despite my attempts to cancel (both are pretty shoddy now, eh?). If anyone has any food magazines with really wonderful writing in them, in lieu of Gourmet and Bon Appetit back in their day, please share!

i've also gotten that newsletter from (the much missed) David Rosengarten a few times. And there's apparently a relatively new cooking/food magazine coming out of the CIA (?) that I'm gonna try. Mm.

I also used to be a big fan of Factsheet 5, Nylon, and Wired. And some local writing zines like Desperate Act...

And I love City weeklies, any town I'm in at the moment, and like reading Le Monde online.
posted by ifjuly at 4:40 PM on January 18, 2005

The Sun
posted by kamikazegopher at 4:45 PM on January 18, 2005

No Depression is my music magazine of choice.
posted by maurice at 4:54 PM on January 18, 2005

I like The Brown Journal of World Affairs and Policy Review- they're both crunchy affairs journals, which I think is interesting. I also like the Believer. I buy the year end collections of Cook's Illustrated, they are easier to search and browse through, and sturdier.
posted by thethirdman at 5:39 PM on January 18, 2005

Damn you guys read a lot of magazines.

Um, Maximum PC, Game Informer, Wired.
posted by adampsyche at 6:35 PM on January 18, 2005

Wired, National Geographic, MacWorld, Backpacker...really want to Adbuster to that list.
posted by ShawnString at 6:38 PM on January 18, 2005

Sys Admin + Linux Journal or Linux Magazine and, of course, 2600. Prior to its non existence, Popular Electronics.
posted by shepd at 7:07 PM on January 18, 2005

Granta rocks.
posted by govtdrone at 7:36 PM on January 18, 2005

Fortean Times. It's the only way to make sense of anything.
posted by SPrintF at 7:50 PM on January 18, 2005

I get Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American and The Walrus. I'm thinking of trading in Scientific American for Discover.

To those of you who subscribe to a million magazines, do you read them? Just the Atlantic keeps me busy for a week.
posted by duck at 8:20 PM on January 18, 2005

The Economist and Seed. Sometimes, American Cinematographer or Res will have something sexy.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:52 PM on January 18, 2005

Wired, Fine Woodworking, Mental Floss (a gift...), Cooking Light, Burda.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 12:52 AM on January 19, 2005

Economist, LRB, Harper's, Prospect, Private Eye, Le Monde diplomatique, The Wire.
posted by riviera at 1:06 AM on January 19, 2005

Private Eye, The Comics Journal, Comic Art, 9e Art, How, Eye, Grafik, Communication Arts, and Creative Review.
posted by ninthart at 2:15 AM on January 19, 2005

Guns and Ammo, Handguns, Wired, Nature Methods, American Rodder, Successful Hunter, Hot Rod Mechanix, Rifle, Handloader, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's, Analog, Pontiac.
posted by 445supermag at 7:58 AM on January 19, 2005

The Week, Harper's, Sunday NYTimes (well, I just walk across the street to the bodega for that one)
posted by papercake at 8:05 AM on January 19, 2005

To those of you who subscribe to a million magazines, do you read them? Just the Atlantic keeps me busy for a week.

I found that once I started subscribing to the New Yorker, the number of books I read dropped off dramatically. I just didn't have any reading time left over for books; I would finish one New Yorker, pick up a book, and the next day a brand-new, shiny, fresh New Yorker was in the mailbox.

A couple of years went by this way, until I expressed my vexation to friends who also subscribed. They knowingly said "Ya gotta stop reading everything in the magazine!" This was hard to accept, because the magazine is addictive. I was reading pieces that looked dead boring using this strategy: "Well, I'll read the first two paragraphs, and if it's still boring, I'll skip this story". Only that almost never happened. Each week I ended up reading everything.

Once I realized that I didn't want to sacrifice all my other reading to the New Yorker, no matter how good it is, I instituted a harsh policy of skipping certain types of articles. I now skip the fiction (I'm not a huge fiction fan anyway) and many articles on foreign policy and world politics, since I get good world news from the BBC. I wish I had time to read everything, but life is too short. You've gotta get selective, sad to say.
posted by Miko at 8:39 AM on January 19, 2005

Business Week
Mental Floss
New Scientist
Wired
posted by edmo at 12:49 PM on January 19, 2005

Discover
Wired
The Nation
The American Prospect
Mother Jones
Newsweek
posted by punishinglemur at 5:09 PM on January 19, 2005

Here's one more for your bin: the Columbia Journalism Review will help you make sense out of everything else you're reading.
posted by mds35 at 11:45 AM on January 25, 2005