Must Reads

As a parade of print publications continue to shutter—or are banished to online-only—it’s so disheartening as a New Yorker, where I see hundreds of folks reading their newspapers and magazines every day on the subway. They’re not accessing their Blackberries, they’re not scanning their laptops… they’re whiling away the time with their noses stuck deep in print.

I’m as much an online junkie as anybody else, but magazines continue to impact my life with great relevance, and I’m sad to see them suffering such losses in advertising. Yes, the fact that I work in the print industry adds a modicum of fear here as well. Okay, panic it is…

Here are a dozen or so regular reads that I can’t imagine life without:

Vanity Fair: Simply the smartest pop culture/entertainment monthly out there. Real feature-length profiles from writers with a practiced point of view. Beautifully designed, appreciably branded and a good hour-long read.

New York: Irreverent, sassy, insider and smart—just like the city itself. Dead-on in attacking those who have taken advantage of their position in politics, real estate, finance and the other industries that make the city tick. I hope it makes it to the other side of this crappy economy.

GQ: This monthly is almost too heavy to lug on the subway, but it’s good for days worth of reading. Good short-form writing on of-the-minute stuff that men should care about, as well as entrepreneurial pieces that are cleverly written and not oozing with fluff (see Entertainment Weekly and Us for that.)

Architectural Digest: Like GQ, the only problem with this design gem is that it’s too robust to heave on the train. But the photography and array of in-depth articles on the topic can’t be beat.

Metropolitan Home, House Beautiful, Elle Décor, Traditional Home, House… Take your pick. I subscribe to each and every one. You’d never know it by our apartment, but every once in a while, I really do find an idea that I can apply to Brooklyn coop living.

Billboard! Hurrah! Sadly, it’s half the size of when I started and many precious sections are long gone, but then again, so it is with the music industry. It’s still the Bible and I remain reverent at being able to take part on a weekly basis.

Garden & Gun: This cunning feature magazine needs sharper editing, but it has a wonderful sense of self-deprecation, and really finds trends in southern culture that go against the grain. And Southern Living: Keeps me in touch with my Virginia roots, where the crepe Myrtle still wraps its tentacles around the mailbox at the curb and the tomatoes are plump and red on the vine. Yas m’aam!

Advocate for Men: Um, the pictures are real pretty. I think there are some stories, too. The regular Advocate is vaguely interesting, though it’s been redesigned and reconfigured so many times that it looks and reads like a black and white billboard. You’d think the nation’s premier gay news magazine would maintain some semblance of humor about itself, but this old queen is dry and increasingly just plain boring. I stick with it, hoping that one day it’ll return to glory. Meanwhile, Out is out.

The Week: A cool little rag that summarizes how various news and entertainment mags have covered the biggest headlines of the week. One-stop shopping for a multitude of viewpoints.

Variety: Don’t know how much longer this grand dame of the Hollywood industry is going to be with us, but it’s a must-read for the inside take on what is going to be impacting movies and TV six months from now.