Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Jamie Talks About A Side Of Reading That Has Fallen To The Wayside

For as long as I can remember I've been as much a magazine reader as I've been a book reader...although I've always leaned more heavy towards books except during my teen years when I barely read.

When I was a kid it was Highlights, Creative Kids (does ANYONE know this one??) and Girl's Life. Then as a tween I started saving all my change and dollar bills to buy J-14, Twist, YM,  Bop, Teen Beat and all the other ones that had the posters of heartthrobs in them.

Then I moved on to Elle Girl, Teen Vogue, Seventeen, CosmoGirl, Teen and more! I mean, I'm telling you I POURED through these day after day. I'd cut out things and save the articles. I cared a lot about makeup and clothes and boys so it was my holy grail and I devoted myself to these magazines.

Then in my 20's I moved on to Elle, Vogue, Cosmo, Self, Glamour but also threw in Paste (still one of my fave magazines -- music, art, movies, etc), US News and World Report, Travel + Leisure, Real Simple and more.


I always made time to read them. I would read them while laying out or while traveling (ALWAYS packed magazines for vacation and airplane rides) or just while sitting home on a lazy day. Or when I was a teen -- ANYTIME I could. My sister or friends and I would just sit in my room reading them together.

But pretty much since I started blogging in 2010 I feel like I've stopped reading magazines as much. I think it's because I always felt like I should be keeping up with all the books I've bought or gotten for review or that I find at the library. When I find myself on vacation, I'm not grabbing for a magazine anymore. It's all books all the time. I do also think that these days I do a lot of magazine type reading via articles on the internet...which I read a lot of.

And I mean, I don't hate it. I love reading all the books. But sometimes I miss the type of reading that goes into reading magazines. It's different. On occasion I'll still pick up a magazine and it's always such a nice break from reading full books. I like not feeling super committed to something in that moment. I like breaking up the content and I like the variety of what I'm able to read within the pages of a magazine and how I can pick it up and put it down.

I'm definitely always going to prefer books but I've decided that I'm going to try to add a little bit of magazine reading back into my reading diet and pick up a magazine for my upcoming trip to Europe at the end of this month.

So I'm curious....do you read magazines often? Which ones? Also, tell me all the magazines you read back in the day because I LOVE NOSTALGIA!

11 comments:

  1. Oh, sure! Like you, I grew up reading ones for kids, things like Disney's "Adventures" magazine. These days it's the Economist, Commonweal, Reason, and a couple others in virtual form.

    When the local bookstore sold them, I would also buy copies of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, or Analog Science Fiction and Fact...they published short stories. I'd like a literary magazine, but those have gone the way of the coach-and-four, I'm afraid.

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  2. I've always read magazines (and books, but that's not what this article is about)! When I was little, my Mom used to buy me issues of Highlights and Chickadee. When I was in college studying Fashion, that's when my magazine reading reached its apex - I would buy upwards of six magazines a month (and many of them were European editions). I still read magazines now, but certainly not as many as I used to. Some of my faves are Cosmo, Red, UK Glamour, Redbook, Allure, Discover Britain, Britain, and Entertainment Weekly.

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  3. I love mags! My current faves are: Coastal Living, Sunset, and Better Homes and Gardens. I subscribe to all three of those and read them monthly.

    My "old school" faves when I was a teen were YM and Seventeen, then of course Cosmo and Glamour in my early 20s.

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  4. I still read magazines. Mostly I pick up ones about decorating or organization. Sometimes I grab People. But I rarely read Cosmo anymore. :(

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  5. I used to read Elle religiously, but just about the time I started book blogging, I stopped. I miss it sometimes but not often...I just honestly don't think about it and any articles I can find online if I really want to anyways

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  6. I've been a mag reader all of my life, too... there was a period for about two years in high school, where I had subscriptions to 7 different magazines at once! (Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Lucky, Nylon, National Geographic, Popular Science, and Cooking Light) :)

    But I agree with you; it's definitely hard to commit time to magazine reading when you feel like you could be putting that time to better use tackling a TBR pile. Especially with the amount of blogs I follow, too, it's just kind of hard to branch out and make that time investment... and you can always find plenty of inspiration on Pinterest, anyways.

    However, I've recently gotten back into magazines in a pretty big way... there's a fairly iconic newspaper "stand" near my college campus that carries almost anything, including international editions. Now, I can pick up a copy of Frankie, Nylon, Domino, Mental Floss, or UK Glamour anytime I want, as well as dip into independently published magazines, as well. I was thinking that it might make for an interesting recurring series, about cool editorials running in various magazines each month.

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  7. I read some of the same ones when I was younger - tiger beat. Highlights and Creative Kids before that. As an adult, I subscribe to a couple and struggle to find the time or interest for them but read lots of books. I guess our reading tastes have matured
    https://runwright.net/2016/04/13/5-reasons-to-visit-a-bookstore/

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  8. When I younger I used to love National Geographic Kids, and Bugs, a limited-run mag about, erm, bugs. Then I had Teen Beat and Smash Hits and Sassy... and lots of zines. These days I still read magazines, although like you, I just don't seem to read them as much as I used to. I'm subscribed to Bitch (feminist response to pop culture), Frankie, She Shreds (guitar mag), and The Horn Book Magazine. I think magazines are getting more interesting, although talked about less among my friends.

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  9. I used to read Highlights and American Girl! I've always loved magazines, but in the last decade or so I've definitely read less of them, and when I do read them, I definitely don't sit down and read them from cover to cover. I am currently subscribed to one magazine though called Relevant, which focuses on culture, music, etc. with a faith perspective, but isn't preachy or cheesy. They have a podcast I listen to as well and sometimes they talk about something in the magazine I realized I missed, so I need to do a better job of reading it apparently!

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  10. I loved Highlights when I was a kid! I read some other ones too that I can't remember the names of. Something to do with a cricket maybe?

    I used to read Brio, YM and Seventeen as a teen and then in my college years I read Cosmo, Glamour, Marie Claire and Self. I subscribed to Self but my friends and I would share issues of the other ones. In my after college years I still read Self but I started reading Cooking Light (which I also subscribed to till I realized I'd rather have the cookbooks. I never made the recipes from the issues!) and Martha Stewart Living as well as the more gossipy Us Weekly and People. Working in a library meant I had access to lots of magazines for free.

    I have noticed that magazines have changed over the years. Many have folded or gone to nonprint formats or have more ads than they used to. I also have stopped reading them as much. I do think they are great for reading on flights (or in waiting rooms) because of how lightweight they are and you don't need to concentrate.

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  11. I remember Highlights and Creative Kids :-) However, I only read those in doctors' offices. I subscribed to Ranger Rick and American Girl as a kid and loved them both. As a teen, I got Seventeen and i got Marie Claire for a while in college, but stopped since I wasn't that into it. Now, the only magazine I subscribe to is Conde Nast Traveler, and i do make time for it, but I don't think I could keep up with another one. I do want to start subscribing to a literary magazine, but I think in general I'm not a huge magazine person.

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