Magazine Suggestions?

I've not been a magazine subscriber since I was a young teen, but for various reasons, I've been considering having one, two or a small few.

I'd like at least one current events/general interest mag (ie, Time, Newsweek, The Economist) and one science mag (ie, National Geographic, Discover, Scientific American).

The two I'm most leaning towards right now are Time and National Geographic, and for similar reasons - good price, variety of topics, excellent photography and articles that are well-written without being pretentious. It also helps that they are both popular and populist and present content that can serve as fodder for conversations I have with others I come across and interact with on a day-to-day basis.

Before I start sampling, I wanted to see if anyone could share their input, experiences and suggestions on what you have been reading. My limited history with magazines means I'm not in a good position to make a good comparison between them and there might be some great magazines I've never even heard of.

What do you think? :wave:

 

Alright friends, I'm going to answer everyone in this one post! Thank you for the suggestions!

Convenient, since Maxim isn't meant to be read anyway

Not for me.

Nice, I forgot about Popular Mechanics. I've seen their content online before- high quality.

I've never heard of them. Their website looks good. It's the kind of magazine I'd be interested in.

Ah, now there's a good one I didn't think about. I won't subscribe, but it might be worth picking up a la carte once in a while.

*yawn*

*yawn*

Online, I let Google News do all the leg work of choosing articles for me. I used to spend time every single day bouncing from site to site to find the good stuff. Today, I mostly listen to NPR in the mornings and pick a few articles to read from Google News at lunch.

 

Oy. I can't believe I'm actually going to share this.

In my entire life, I have only once bought a magazine with the purpose of ogling the women in the photos. It was an issue of BlackMen magazine that featured Toccara Jones on the cover, back when I was hopelessly obsessed with her. When I saw the mag on the rack at the gas station, I snatched it quickly and rolled it up to hide what I was holding. My heart was racing like crazy- I felt so embarrassed about what I was going to buy, it almost felt like I was shoplifting. I didn't want anyone to catch me!

When I brought it to the clerk, I laid it flat so he could check the price. He took one look at the cover and his eyes bugged out and instantly snapped up to stare accusingly at me. I wanted to cry. As soon as he took the money, I rolled it back up and quickly walked out of there. I nearly sprinted home just to prevent the possibility that anyone I knew would try to stop and talk to me. When I got home, I locked my doors, sat at my desk and looked down at my purchase. Two distinct thoughts raced through my mind as I did so.

1) Man, she looks good.

and

2) I'm such a loser.

 

She was on America's Next Top Model and later Celebrity Fit Club. She was incredibly annoying, but, yes, really nice to look at. :icon16: :banana:

 

I still haven't decided.

I read through an issue of Time. It was alright, but nothing too special. I'm tempted to subscribe just because it's so cheap.

After thumbing through some National Geographic issues on the newsstand, I decided I wasn't even going to buy it. I'm happy enough with reading and watching their online content.

Discover is a good looking science magazine with a lot of cool topics, but the articles themselves leave a lot to be desired. They often skip over very important questions that any article should answer (most often, HOW and WHY) and have weasel word syndrome with lots of sentences like "studies suggest..." and "there is some evidence to support..." without even taking a sentence or two to briefly explain what the evidence is and why it supports the conclusion. Simplicity and brevity are good things, when done intelligently, and this mag doesn't do that very well.

I'm in love with Scientific American. Highly likely to subscribe. I also enjoyed reading Smithsonian magazine. I'd probably like subscribing to it, but I'm not sure I'd want to have both Scientific American and Smithsonian. Not that there is a lot of overlap between them- there is some, but Smithsonian covers a lot more than just science. Rather, I'd be reading these two for similar reasons- to equally satisfy and stir my curiosity and possibly find subjects I'd like to read about more in depth- so, I'd prefer to only pick one.

I just came back from Barnes and Noble and have issues of The Economist, The New Yorker, Harper's, Forbes and Wired. I'll report my findings as I go along

 

I'm with John, The Week is pretty good for a general interest news magazine, although I've only read the UK edition.

 

I haven't been able to find it around here to check it out for myself. I like their online content. I might have to do a sample subscription, if they have something like that, just to give it a whirl.

 

It's a lot cheaper than The Economist, and better, IMHO. My problem is that print magazines just accumulate without me having time to read them, then I just recycle them and it's wasteful. So I stopped subscribing.

 

Oh, here you go:

Try 4 Risk-Free issues of The Week Magazine
https://subscribe.theweek.com/servlet/Show?WESPAGE=pm/Pages/load_order.jsp&WESACTIVESESSION=TRUE&PAGE_ID=WKBundRsk&MAGCODE=WK&MSCCMPLX=602WKRA01%22

 

Same thing happened to me. Thankfully, they didn't get all bullyish and demand I pay anyway. In fact, now that I think of it, their complete lack of hesitation to drop the bill makes me wonder if this was something they did purposely and routinely.