With Amazon now

November 23, 2001 3:44 PM

With Amazon now selling magazines it became slightly easier to buy them. They also can be the gift that keeps on giving. What's everyone's favorite magazine(s), and why?
posted by geoff. (70 comments total)

What, no New Yorker? Also Prometheus is good, expenso-matic, but good. Also Blindspot (photography), Lingua Franca (but I don't know about the whole new thing), and if we're doing literary journals, McSweeneys, FRISKmagazine, and Tin House.

You know, that was really fun.
posted by j.edwards at 3:58 PM on November 23, 2001

2600, baybee!
posted by manero at 4:13 PM on November 23, 2001

It's gotta be GRIT, America's family magazine since 1882. Why? Because I make a good living delivering GRIT to my friends and neighbors, and I learn valuable lessons in honesty, integrity and perseverance by selling the magazine.
posted by shinybeast at 4:15 PM on November 23, 2001

These are all pretty mainstream (at least that means you can read them at the library), but it's a rare issue of the Economist or New York Review of Books that I couldn't spend an enjoyable hour or two with. The web has pretty much killed my need to find stranger stuff in magazine format.
posted by mlinksva at 4:28 PM on November 23, 2001

I am secretly addicted to EW, but don't tell anyone.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:33 PM on November 23, 2001

Cool and Strange Music magazine is my fave. It's chockablock with...ummm...cool and strange music.
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:53 PM on November 23, 2001

I'll second geoff's choice of The Atlantic Monthly. I've been a subcriber ever since the series of articles called "Reefer Madness" appeared back in '94. It helped formed my opinion on the legalization issue. Subsequent reads were equally persuasive.
posted by slipperytoast at 5:01 PM on November 23, 2001

My favorite used to be "Ben is Dead" but it has ceased to be, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! To make things worse, the domain's been snarfed by a porno site. Sigh... Any fans here found a suitable replacement?
posted by shinybeast at 5:17 PM on November 23, 2001

New Scientist and MIT Technology Review to keep up with what's new

The Week to pretend to know whats happening in the world

Empire and Q to let off steam

Hola in the loo
posted by Voyageman at 5:19 PM on November 23, 2001

Infiltration - the zine about going places you're not supposed to go.
posted by dithered at 5:21 PM on November 23, 2001

But if Amazon is making it easier to buy magazines... what will all those elementary school kids sell instead of 10 year renewals?

Oh right, candy bars.
posted by adamv at 5:55 PM on November 23, 2001

Ah man... they don't have any non-US titles.

I'll pitch-in for The Atlantic Monthly and McSweeney's (who can resist a magazine printed in Iceland?), as well... not to mention the tried and true National Geographic.

What I hoped, though, was that Amazon would finally make ordering the off-shore magazines easy... no more calling up someone in France, racking my brain for the proper term for "subsciption".

If I could... I'd subscribe to British Homes & Gardens, and Jardins.
posted by silusGROK at 6:00 PM on November 23, 2001

Er... "subscription".

Hey! Fench isn't my native tongue!
posted by silusGROK at 6:01 PM on November 23, 2001

I almost forgot Aperture to impress on the coffee table.
posted by Voyageman at 6:17 PM on November 23, 2001

My secret pleasure in magazines is Car and Driver. I'm not particularly into cars and no other car magazines really speak to me. But those guys have a really lively writing style that I love to read. They can make you feel like a car nut for a few hours, even if you're not.
posted by kindall at 6:19 PM on November 23, 2001

Hrm...... hustler, penthouse, and swank.....

Always good bathroom reading material.
posted by ewwgene at 6:26 PM on November 23, 2001

Getting a new Smithsonian always makes for a nice afternoon..
posted by jheiz at 6:41 PM on November 23, 2001

Playboy, because I'm a perve.
posted by animoller at 6:56 PM on November 23, 2001

The only magazine I've ever cared to keep reading and renewing (at least since those old Atari computer magazines went under when I was in junior high) is Utne Reader. It's also the only magazine I can read from cover to cover and find consistently interesting. Here's hoping it doesn't go under. I'm looking for folks to give it to for Christmas.
posted by delapohl at 6:58 PM on November 23, 2001

magazines are little twelve-year-old reading level chunks of information... there is nothing noble, dignified, or truly artistic contained in them."
-- ernest hemingway
that said, i do have a soft spot for the British version of Glamour magazine, based solely on the fact that it's small. Its' tagline is "fits in your life, and your handbag!!" There's something pleasing on a purely tactile level about them.
(p.s. that's not a real Hemingway quote, I made it up. But it kind of works, don't you think?)
posted by babydoll at 7:00 PM on November 23, 2001

Whole Earth Review
Harpers
The Atlantic
New York Review of Books
Kyoto Journal
Colors
posted by mmarcos at 7:02 PM on November 23, 2001

My favorite magazine used to be a zine called 'Pulp', which was put out by one of my friends. That magazine seemed so rebellious, so anti-status-quo. But that magazine has since gone under.

Now I'm putting out my own print zine, called 'The Letter F - The Filthiest Letter'. Hopefully it'll be a success up here in the Arctic. (and if any of you guys want a copy, shoot me off an email! I'll hook you up with a special metafilter-readers' price!)

Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement, it's not supposed to be. That's why I've left off any links to more information on it.
posted by premiumpolar at 7:03 PM on November 23, 2001

Sheep magazine, although the models are getting a little young. I like my sheep to have wool.
posted by RobertLoch at 7:05 PM on November 23, 2001

Got to this thread a little late, I see. Anyhoop...here's the hit: I keep Wired. From self-regenerating plastics to nanobots the world is a very strange place.
posted by Quixoticlife at 7:18 PM on November 23, 2001

Fortean times. Exceptional sceptical journalism about the basic weirdness of the world in fact and fiction, plus a lively letters column.
posted by retrofut at 7:23 PM on November 23, 2001

Artbyte, Stay Free, and Giant Robot.
posted by skyline at 7:30 PM on November 23, 2001

Scientific American. Good for the brain.
posted by hockeyman at 7:39 PM on November 23, 2001

i like emigre, arkitip and juxtapoz for arty stuff

and also vice
posted by sawks at 7:48 PM on November 23, 2001

Colors and Wallpaper and Big are all my faves.

Adbusters is not. It revels in its non-existent coolness and is just boring.
posted by catatonic at 7:57 PM on November 23, 2001

I'm an infoholic, so I'm reading magazines, books, newspapers, web pages, cereal boxes, etc. all the time.
At my desk at work, for lunch time reading, I have old copies of Maxim, MaximumPC, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming Monthly, Wired, Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, Entertainment Weekly, Stuff, Sports Illustrated, FHM, Macleans, Baseball Weekly, Baseball America, Games, Frank, Premiere, and Rolling Stone.

I don't buy every issue of each of those magazines, but I have at least 2 issues of each in the past year. When I'm done with them (and I run out of space) I usually take them to the company lunch room and dump them there for other people to read.
posted by Grum at 7:58 PM on November 23, 2001

Talk. Tina Brown's insight and unparalleled intellectual vision have rocketed this upstart publication into a stratospheric realm heretofore unrealized in the annals of Western Literature. Plus, Gwyneth looks dreamy on the cover.
posted by Optamystic at 8:03 PM on November 23, 2001

Mother Jones consistently does pieces that open my eyes. Such as medical marijuana clubs being targeted by the federal government in spite of state support for them.
posted by sillygit at 8:11 PM on November 23, 2001

Hey Gwyn, nice tits.

My favorite is Harper’s because the writing is the best in the world.

There are many more worth reading: The Economist, Atlantic Monthly, MoJones , the New Yorker, The Thresher (only one issue but it’s good), Craphound, Clamor, Hermenaut (really fucking good, last issue especially), The Baffler, Multinational Monitor, Anthem, Speak, Grooves, XLR8R, Azure...

Tin House and Little Engines aren’t bad. I don’t read McSweeney’s, Colors, Wallpaper or Wired anymore. What’s more, I think Amazon started selling mags a few years ago.

and c’mon, Granta. Articles on teaching creative writing — is it even possible? — makes it an intimidating mag.
posted by raaka at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2001

animerica... why? because i'm a f-in dork.
posted by lotsofno at 8:41 PM on November 23, 2001

The Economist, The Nation, Harper's, and sometimes the Whole Earth Review.

But I don't really read magazines much.
posted by moss at 9:02 PM on November 23, 2001

Fine Woodworking
Cooks Illustrated
Popular Mechanics
The Washington Monthly
The New Yorker
Lingua Franca (waaah!)
posted by nicwolff at 9:13 PM on November 23, 2001

The Wire is the only music magazine for me.
posted by anathema at 9:18 PM on November 23, 2001

Maxim. Porn for the socially inept.
posted by owillis at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2001

might

sigh.
posted by lescour at 9:41 PM on November 23, 2001

Total Football...but Future Publishing in the UK appears to have stopped publishing it which is rather depressing since that basically leaves me with 4-4-2 (since Match of the Day isn't published either) as my only accessible football magazine.

Extra which is rather odd since I almost never read newspapers or watch network TV news programming anymore.

NextGen for my monthly console gaming news fix
posted by pixelgeek at 9:43 PM on November 23, 2001

Wired, although Conde Nast got a grip on it and shoved a bunch of business reply cards in it. I read The New Republic for the political scoop. Unlike most, they sometimes admit it when they are wrong. I have recently begun to read dwell and recommend it highly. I also read the Oxford American, which is a fine and dandy magazine, albeit on the brink financially. Perhaps the OA should consider more business reply cards.
posted by samuelad at 9:48 PM on November 23, 2001

Cross Stitch Collection seems to be the only magazine I'm buying these days on a regular basis. It's probably high time I subscribe, but it will probably be my luck that they stop running interesting patterns after I start, just like every other cross stitch magazine I bothered subbing to.
posted by Electric Elf at 10:23 PM on November 23, 2001

Oh... and don't leave out Place and Gastronomica.
posted by silusGROK at 10:26 PM on November 23, 2001

Straight No Chaser, no doubt.
posted by pascal at 10:32 PM on November 23, 2001

PLAYBOY, what else?
I read it for the articles.
And the nude women.
Not necessarily in that order.
posted by StOne at 10:34 PM on November 23, 2001

I used to love SPY magazine...but it went under. Then I fell in love with Brill's Content...and it went under. Dammit. The old standby's of Time, Newsweek, and US News & WR are always good for browsing. I love Atlantic & Harper's, too. PC Mag and Smart Computing often. Talk has impressed me lately. Wired...is not as good as it was, but always worth flipping through. My wife loves In Style magazine, which weighs as much as all of the other magazines I've referenced added together.
posted by davidmsc at 10:40 PM on November 23, 2001

God, I love magazines. In no particular order:
Bitch
Hermenaut
The Baffler
Interweave Knits
Bust (hopefully they'll come back)
Fine Cooking
Also (mentioned above): Cooks Illustrated, The Nation, Fortean Times. I'll read any magazine I find, though.
posted by kittyloop at 10:45 PM on November 23, 2001

O Magazine.
"Bow Down Before The One You Serve."
posted by Optamystic at 10:56 PM on November 23, 2001

I absolutely love MOJO above all other music mags.
posted by CosmicSlop at 12:23 AM on November 24, 2001

Bizarre Magazine is the one for me.
posted by ajbattrick at 1:58 AM on November 24, 2001

Some magazines should not be eligible for gift-giving. Merry Christmas, John! I hope you enjoy the subscription I bought for you: Men (or Playboy) magazine [depending on one's preference]!
posted by pooldemon at 4:01 AM on November 24, 2001

Subscriptions to (in English) The Ecologist, Resurgence, Permaculture, Planet, (and in Welsh) Barn and Taliesin. Also buy Sight and Sound, Mojo and Uncut (mostly for the cover CD).
posted by ceiriog at 4:45 AM on November 24, 2001

FAD megazine

completely insubstantial, but hooo-haw, pretty pretty pictures.

i buy the policy review to read on the commuter train.
posted by crush-onastick at 6:48 AM on November 24, 2001

R.I.P Brill's Content :(

Wired, Discover, Electronic Gaming Monthly. Subscribe to all three.

And no, I'm not a virgin.

Hee.
posted by glenwood at 7:52 AM on November 24, 2001

The best magazine out there is Shift. Both the content and the design are incredible. I gave up on Wired long ago.
posted by quietfish at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2001

Wallpaper, Colors and Wired.

And a subscription to Adbusters, but I'm not sure that's worth it either.
posted by willem at 8:17 AM on November 24, 2001

Reason Magazine Not only is the writing great, but it shares viewpoints woefully under-represented in the mainstream press.
posted by O Boingo at 9:26 AM on November 24, 2001

Doubletake has changed somewhat since they left Duke, but it's still worth reading.
posted by gluechunk at 11:18 AM on November 24, 2001

I miss Might too. (But McSweeney's is just as good.) Brill's Content and Inside magazine and Preparation X were also fun while they lasted.

I also like the New Yorker, National Geographic Traveler, Cook's Illustrated (Christopher Kimball rocks), the Atlantic Monthly, Total Film, The New York Times Magazine, the occasional issue of Maxim, Videography, TV Broadcast, the occasional issue of Flying (even though I don't know how to fly, it's still a nifty read), Utne Reader, Stay Free!, and a bunch more.

(yes, I'm a geek.)

I used to like CMJ New Music Monthly, too, before they got snotty. I'm still looking for a decent music mag. Mojo and Q aren't bad.
posted by Vidiot at 11:28 AM on November 24, 2001

Maxim and Stuff
posted by adampsyche at 12:04 PM on November 24, 2001

Communication Arts. I'm a web designer. The Design Annual is the current issue, and also the one I look forward to the most. I get a lot of inspiration from this magazine, and I suggest it to anyone looking for vague direction.
posted by schlaager at 10:30 PM on November 24, 2001

i just can't live with out the world's greatest satirical magazine:
Private Eye, 40 years of insulting the pompous and writing wrongs.
posted by quarsan at 8:26 AM on November 25, 2001

SLEAZENATION SLEAZENATION SLEAZENATION.

the best of the uk lifestyle magazines.

slightly less witty than it was a couple of years ago, but still damn good. unfortunately, incredibly expensive here in the states (8 bucks! -- grr.)

also i like cometbus. (info ; sample )
posted by fishfucker at 11:49 PM on November 25, 2001

Mefi is my favorite magazine. It effectively out-Utnes Utne reader.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:15 AM on November 26, 2001

Mefi is my favorite magazine. It effectively out-Utnes Utne reader.

Sadly accurate. Good point!
posted by retrofut at 12:27 PM on November 26, 2001

Sadly accurate? Why sad? Because Matt isn't making money off it? Because The Web makes compilation-type magazines less valuable?
posted by ParisParamus at 12:40 PM on November 26, 2001

Mainstream, but good -- Rolling Stone and Smithsonian. Plus I occasionally rifle through my brother's Car & Driver. And to remind myself of how different a world some people live in, I read about one Vogue yearly. Good God, without that I'd never believe that people like that (read: those who wear $5,000 outfits over a lipo'd and tuck'd figure, and are so liberal attempting to hold a moderate thought would explode their heads) could exist. I'm sadly behind on mags... hadn't heard of many of those listed. Ah well, more schtuff to check out.
posted by e^2 at 10:00 PM on November 26, 2001

Skeptic, Physics Today, Z, NME, the Nation.
That's the english language mags I'm reading whenever I can find them (or on the web these days).
posted by talos at 2:32 AM on November 27, 2001

PP, because Utne Reader seems a match for the perceived demographics of many suggestions above. ("Mainstream" would be a good word for it — not sure Vogue or Car and Driver will change the world [though not saying they won't reflect it], but then different people read mags for different reasons.)

OTOH, I think you have a point about the net and ease of compilation, as we slouch towards Xanadu...

More on-T, I'd add New Scientist and Discover, both good science mags for the intelligent public.
posted by retrofut at 12:18 PM on November 27, 2001

Nerve, too bad they gave up so quickly.
posted by tsarfan at 2:16 PM on November 28, 2001