justbeast

It's less a value issue and more a TIME issue. I just... I barely have time to eat, do my homework, and take care of Jaeger. Reading magazines? Sooooooo low on the list. If I have a free scrap of time I'm either catching up on homework or making something.

N.

Oh, I totally hear you. I'm in a similar place, and I don't even have a baby :)

I have like 2 years worth of comics waiting to be read :( And I WANT to read those!!!

The Ferry should be good magazine time, yeah?

N.

(Out of curiosity, which comics are on your pile?)

Well, see, it's interesting, about the Ferry. It's "enforced" free time, 40 mins a day. But that basically means I gotta decide each time what to spend it on - catching up on LJ/Twitter, writing new posts (this is what I usually end up doing), reading print books, playing video games OR reading magazines.

So I usually either write, or cycle through the above, on the ferry.

Comics in the pile: Buffy Season 8, Angel: After the Fall, Spike (I AM A DORQUE), Echo (by the guy who did Strangers in Paradise). I stopped collecting comics for a number of years, and then I just wanted to know What Happened in season 8 of Buffy.... And well....

Ah, the free time cycle. Hmmm.

N.

Is it funny that I read you first sentence and thought you referred to an issue of TIME?

I actually read LOTS of print magazines. I go to the library once a week and sit for hours, reading. I mostly read magazines devoted to a particular skill -- cooking, art, sewing, knitting, crochet, woodworking, etc.

But I also follow the fashion rags pretty closely, especially Vogue.

Wow, nice! I keep meaning to do that, but my local library keeps odd hours.

I hate that odd hour thing. I once had a library like that, and I actually wrote library times on my calendar so I could be sure to get there when it was open.

In case it's not obvious, I take my libraries Very Seriously.

Honestly, for me it is mostly about time. I don't have a lot of free time while I'm going to college so I tend to be reading textbooks, or books on my e-reader that have been on the "to read" list for months. I will read Goblinfruit, or any other thing one of y friends is published in, but it isn't regularly.

Hey, makes sense. Magazines occupy an odd place in the information diet. They're more like after-dinner cordials or cigar, I think, than sustenance food, for most people.

I seriously <3 me some catalogs though! It's like an aperitif!

Hee - well, now you gotta say which ones!

LTD Commodities (Household stuff cheap)
Nature's Treasures (jewelry made from stone and stuff)
Pyramid Collection (new age Pagan-y type stuff)
Aerosole Shoes (I'm a boot slut)
Good Vibrations (porn and sex toys)
Gael Song (Celtic stuff)
Catalog Favorite's (Best sellers from junk catalogs)
Archie McPhee (toys and novelties)
Some clothing catalogs that mostly get pitched.

I browse through Pyramid Collection (altho their db is crazy, and sends us like 3 at a time) from time to time, as well as some Victorian home something, and the ThinkGeek catalogue.

I think I get the Victorian one and am madly in love with their trinkets! I get a couple of crafty type mags as well. Sewing type stuff, latch hook, beading, etc. Azure Green sends me their catalog once in a blue moon, but most of the time the pics are such crap that I can't tell if I would want to buy "it" or not. The website was a hot mess the last time I was there too.

I think you're right about how magazines are perceived.

There are a few, for me, though, which have been the primary contributors to my growth in different skill areas.

-- Cooks Illustrated
-- Cloth, Paper, Scissors
-- Belle Armoire
-- FiberArts
-- Thread
-- Selvedge

I follow these intently, taking copious notes. I get annual bound volumes of Cooks, and frequently buy single issues of the others, if they have something I need to reference in the future.

I used to read National Geographic pretty much cover to cover. Lately I just switched my attention so entirely to books that I barely read magazines and newspapers (I rely on my husband and Jon Stewart to tell me the news and whether the world is about to end :)).

Oddly enough, I still subscribe to a few magazines -- I have a couple of Buddhist ones (Tricycle, Buddhadharma) and one professional (American Archivist, I suppose I would count it as a 'journal'). We get Smithsonian also because we have a family membership. I used to subscribe to Russian Review (which is also an academic journal, not really a mag), but had to cut it due to money issues and because I couldn't really keep up :)).

I look through them all when they arrive, and I read some articles that look good, but I no longer read any of them cover to cover. Simply no time.

Actually, on the e-mags, etc- I don't like ebooks/emags, so won't download them.}:P

FYI, I forgot to add Coilhouse to print.

I love travel-porn. I only subscribe to Budget Travel (where I have found several of my vacations over the last ten years or so), but I will pick up clusters of travel magazines in the stores when I pass by that area, and read them single-issue. I also read local free children-related publications because they have good advertisements for kids' events, schools, afterschool activities, and other stuff I actually wanna know exists so I can use it for my kids. I often skip the articles in those and just read the ads.

Although I do get and read the two food related magazines I cited, I don't pay for them. Both are gifts from my parents. If they weren't, I might pay for Nutrition Action because I it is put out by The Center for Science in the Public Interest and I support their policies, but although I've gotten many fine recipes from Eating Well, I'd probably just get it at the library instead, of peruse their website.

My wife gets many magazines, but most of them are things like Vogue or Cosmo, etc. I sometimes read them when I'm eating breakfast. They terrify me. She also gets Bust magazine, which is pretty awesome.

Re Nutrition Action - so what's in it? Recipes and stuff?

There are a few recipes, but it's more an analysis of claims made about food and how solid the science is or isn't. For example, they spend a lot of time ripping apart misleading labeling on packaged foods. They have no ads and are totally funded by subscribers, so they have the freedom to skewer pretty much every food company out there.

Wow, that's pretty cool.. I don't suppose I can bribe you into sending me one of the issues or something?

I usually recycle them when I'm done, but I'll see if I have one lying around.

I almost always read the cooking magazines within a week of receiving them. I loved Gourmet and have yet to find a good replacement for it, unfortunately. The homebrewing magazines I read less frequently. I almost never read Time Out New York (we subscribe to it because it is very cheap and V thinks it will help us get to the city to do things more often--I don't think it has, though).

I was a big fan of F&SF till I cut the subscription to save money and am hoping to resub soon.

I also subbed to Locus and Realms of Fantasy (2 incarnations ago) but that was more out of feeling I should like them than actually liking them, if that makes any sense.

I used to read Wired but stopped when it went through a phase of feeling like it was no longer for geeks and was instead for rich men. Dunno if it's still there since the market crashed. Online I read Slate and Salon every week day (as well as the NYTimes Magazine weekly), but I don't subscribe to push content, I just visit the websites.

I forget about Strange Horizons for weeks at a time and then go and binge through all the new fiction and sometimes poetry.

I read the New Yorker cartoons and poems and the very occasional story or article via my mom's print subscription.

Otherwise the only magazines I read are for work: ours, sister pubs, and competitors, plus Folio and B2B (trade magazines for magazines) and Consumer Reports.

I read e-newsletters from GalleyCat and Publisher's Weekly and Publisher's Lunch, but I don't know that that's quite the same thing.