I stopped reading a newspaper a while ago, but I do still enjoy magazines. In the last 10 years or so the magazine landscape has changed a lot, with some magazines getting a lot better and some a lot worse IMO. So here's my current magazine state of the union. Yours?

Magazines I currently read regularly:

The New Yorker - Some great political analysis, often some excellent true crime, and usually from very good humor. Oliver Sacks still sometimes contributes as well as David Sedaris. Probably my favorite magazine ever.

Harper's - I think it's pretty hit-or-miss, but I still like it. Also, Harper's is responsible for me playing holdem, which I guess is a good thing.

US Weekly - This should keep me from being accused of being elitist. My wife has a subscription and I've come to look forward to it. GREAT bathroom reading. Man, that Britney is nuts!

Magazines I buy when travelling:

The Economist - Great to take up time on a plane. I definitely should read it regularly but I don't.

Entertainment Weekly - Std airplane mag.

Magazines that used to be good but now suck:

Vanity Fair - There, I said it. Used to be SO good but now I rarely find a single article I enjoy. I also just can't stand Dominick Dunne.

Los Angeles Magazine - Worst magazine ever. When my wife buys it she hides it because I'll get mad.

Magazine I miss a lot:

Talk - I loved that magazine. Great mix of politics and humor.

I'd love to hear some magazine that I might like, my New Yorker is lonely.

I just get whatever mags i find free subscriptions to online. Currently i think thats Time and Baseball Digest. Both do their thing.

I agree fully with what you said about The Economist. Whenever I read it I tell myself I need a subscription... it just never happens.

The only two I subscribe to are Esquire (which I love) and I recently subscribed to Interior Design because it's a new interest of mine. Interior Design is really cool if you're into that kind of stuff and it has lots of suggestions for classy/modern stuff for your place.

When traveling I like to read The Atlantic, Playboy, and GQ. All of these have 2-3 hours of good reading material in them, although I do get some funny looks when reading Playboy.

I think The Economist is always a great read. Well written, insightfull etc. Definitely the best magazine in that genre.

For entertainment I quite like GQ.

National Geographic is a must.

Same thoughts with The Economist.

I go to the school's bookstore to read Slam/Dime. We got free subscription from past tenants so I read those in the bathroom.

GQ/Detail/Men's Vogue.

I used to read Forbes but I can read a lot of stuff online nowadays. Do people still get WSJ/Barron's in person or do you browse online nowadays?

Magazines I get.

Sports Illustrated
GQ
Details
ESPN
Wired
Esquire
Consumer Reports
Maxim
Stuff
Newsweek
Fortune
Forbes
Money

how do you have time to read all these magazines... As for economist, I do the same thing everyone said in this thread, I don't think I could read it every week if I got it. I mostly have a pile of GQs sitting in my bedroom collecting dust

I read the American edition of Esquire, the British edition sucks. Also F1 Racing magazine as I am a long time fan. The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker I get when I can.

Omaha how do you read all of those? I get Forbes, Smart Money and Kiplingers (yay $6 internet subscriptions!!) and have a hard enough time keeping up on those three.

I get Economist on subscription. It's the biggest bang for the buck in terms of time:knowledge. I read it on the train to and from work. Highly recommended.

I get Foreign Affairs on subscription. It's one issue every two months, but it is really good in presenting the 'establishment' point of view and has detailed and reasoned articles. It's more expensive than the other magazines, I'd recommend it if you are interested in that sort of thing.

I also get Time on subscription. It used to be good, but now it's sort of a cheap tabloid like Entertainment Weekly. When it comes due, I doubt I will renew it. Lowly recommended.

I get Fortune on free trial subscription. It seems like the tabloid version for finance. There has to be something better... any got any suggestions? Also lowly recommended.


I realise this magazine list looks like a thinly veiled brag. I apologize for that!

I read "The Economist" every week, and whichever of "Gourmet", "Food & Wine", or "Bon Appetit" my wife currently gets on a free trial basis.

For fun reading to kill travel time I like SI and Car & Driver.

I feel really bad that "Jane" is being discontinued. Not that I read it, but of its genre (Cosmo, etc.) it seemed to me to be the one magazine for young women that started with the pretense that they had a brain and planned to use it. I would have been fine with my daughter reading it a decade from now.

I try to read every National Geographic and I am never disappointed.

Discover Magazine is pretty good. I like to be able to read about science but at a level that I can easily comprehend.

Men's Health is ok content wise but I find that when I get and read it I stay motivated to work out.

I had a year subscription to Time which I enjoyed but ultimately found it too hard to keep up with.

The Harvard Business Review is very expensive but well worth it if you are in management or enjoy reading about business from a more technical or educational perspective.

when I was a kid I used to read Dragon Magazine which was about Dungeons and Dragons and always enjoyed it. My girlfriend says I'm not allowed to talk about this though.

Getting Dragon Magazine was the highlight of my month when I was in middle school. I haven't had a subscription in well over a decade, but I was sad to learn that the magazine recently ceased publication. The final issue of Dragon (#359) shipped out this month.

The only subscription I have is to ESPN the Magazine, and only because it's included with an Insider subscription. It's not worth reading on it's own.

OT aside: I was in book store killing time and I happened to see Penthouse Magazine. I hadn't looked at that magazine in about 3 years, so I thought I'd take a look. It's completely changed. Last time I saw an issue, they were as hard core as any of hard core magazines (full penetration, etc.), with a few articles that were supposed to differentiate it from your Club Magazine type of porn. Today--it's nearly indistinguishable from Maxim/Stuff. In fact, the layout seems to be exactly the same as those mags, with the only distinguishing feature being the occassional bearing of nipples. They even show less than Playboy. And have fewer pics than Maxim/Stuff (though they are wearing fewer clothes).

But I can't see how the magazine can survive. It's not *completely* embarassing to be seen reading Maxim. But I'd guess that if you were seen looking at Penthouse, people would think you're looking at porn.

Haha, good old Dragon magazine. I think I subscribed to that for one year. My roommate and I were talking about how we spent more time learning about the rules for those games than we ever did playing them.

I had an Economist subscription for a year, and if I were going to read magazines on a regular basis again I'd give that another shot. But man, that's a lot of reading - that's a dense, dense magazine. My roommate gets Scientific American, which I probably read one article from a month. When I remember it exists, Physics Today is not bad.

this would seem to be a very odd decision on the Part of Penthouse. A brand identity once established is nearly impossible to change especially in the case of a stigma like Penthouse. Additionally they are going to turn off their existing customers. If they are really wanting to go in that direction it would seem easier to start a new magazine all together. As you alluded to, having a Penthouse laying around is not going to acceptable to most people regardless of the current content.

I haven't seen a penthouse in 15 years but from what I remember there was definitely no penetration or male junk shown, just guys standing behind bent over girls, girls touching each other above the waist, pretty soft core stuff.

According to Wikipedia, they went full hardcore in 1998 and went back to softcore in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penthouse_magazine

I'm ashamed to say I buy PokerPlayer occasionally.

I read Newsweek and New York magazine on a weekly basis, and Travel & Leisure, Wine Spectator and either GQ/Esquire (usually based on cover story) on a monthly basis.

I want to start reading the New Yorker and The Economist, but I feel like it's hard enough keeping up with my current stable of magazines.

These two mags on your coffee table = very effective way to pick up dudes.

Irieguy

Sample size??

Does Esquire really have a reputation of being gay'ish? I've always thought it's pretty manly in a metro-type way (I guess that's an oxymoron, I'm just saying there's lot of content for and about manly guys alongside the fashion stuff).

But I also subscribe to Interior Design so I obv can't speak to issues of manliness. :-)