On respecting magazines

June 16, 2008


MagazinesAt home, I read books. I enjoy their heft. They’re created out of time, like a sculpture, and their solidity makes me feel like I’m doing something filled with honor; something worthwhile.

Or course, I also read magazines, but with a much slighter frequency. I find that I don’t give magazines any respect. They’re too easy to throw away, filled with short snippets of information. I enjoy them, yet, I don’t trust them. I refuse to let myself get caught up in them, regardless of my personal desires.

Why the difference?

I’ve always convinced myself that it’s a matter of time. Magazines come too often. I don’t have time to read everything. And being a completist, I’m the kind of person who feels the need to page through every article – whether or not I read them – in order to feel as if I’ve gotten everything I can get out of a magazine.

They’re also time sensitive, for the most part. A book I can set aside for months – years even – but a magazine begs to be read immediately.

So I don’t subscribe to magazines, even though that’s exactly what I should be reading in my much busier, post-delivery life. Instead, I cling to books, which are more difficult to read and ostensibly solid. They’re permanent, while magazines are flighty. They’re serious, while magazines are jaunty.

And here’s the irony. I cling to books, yet I haven’t completed one in over a month. In fact, I haven’t read one since May.

But magazines? I devour the trade pubs at work. I read Paste at home. I would probably get a lot of use out of a subscription to The New Yorker, or The Believer.

At home, I read books – but really I don’t. Instead, I pretend to read books, while actually scouring the house for magazines. Which, as I said before, I don’t trust.

When it comes to reading, I’ve got a lot of things to sort out.

Tags: Books, Journalism, Literature |

2 Comments

Comments

2 Responses to “On respecting magazines”

  1. Nils Geylen on June 17th, 2008 1029 am

    The nail on the head as they say.

    In truth, though, some magazines are like books. I know I can take weeks or months even reading a Wired Mag or .Net Mag and still discover new things in them.

    And some of the fancier ones actually almost look like books. They appear a few times a year only, weigh a ton and command an amount of respect just by their looks that some books don’t even come near to.

    Great observation, great post.

  2. Corey Vilhauer on June 17th, 2008 1125 pm

    Or, there’s subscriptions like McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, which is most certainly a book but is as timely as a magazine. The line is so easy to blur.

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