Places to Go

I subscribe to quite a few magazines, and they reflect my interests quite well. I'd subscribe to many more if I could afford it, had time to read them all, and had the space to keep them. Here they are, with links to their corresponding web sites.

The Utne Reader is a bimonthly magazine that is, I suppose, best categorized as "alternative press". They attempt to stimulate intelligent thought and discussion by presenting many diverse ideas and stories relevant to the world today. Some people would probably call them a "liberal mag", but often the views expressed in articles lean more to the right. A good read that I wish arrived in my snail-mailbox with greater frequency.

Car and Driver is, in my opinion, the best automotive magazine. I don't always agree with their editorials, which usually have a highly conservative leaning, but there's no doubt that they have the most thorough car reviews offered in any car mag I've ever read. I usually find their views on cars, driving, and the automotive industry right on target, and as long as the writers don't stray too far from their area of expertise, the editorials are quite intelligent.

Since purchasing my fun-to-drive Focus, I've become more interested in the sport compact car crowd, and as a result, I took Sport Compact Car Magazine up on a subscription offer. They have lots of good editorials, technical articles, reviews of aftermarket hop-up parts (the primary focus of the magazine is on modifying inexpensive compact cars, like the Focus), and even the advertisements are interesting for ideas for my Focus.

I subscribe to the Journal of Asian Martial Arts. As a martial artist who is fascinated by martial arts history and technical information, I looked for a good magazine. However, all of the ones that I found had too little emphasis on good, technical articles, and were obviously not aimed at a scholarly audience (to put it politely). This journal is just what I was looking for. I just wish there were more than just four issues a year.

I subscribe to Scientific American to keep in touch with the world of science since I no longer work in that area. It's a very good science magazine with just the right level of technical detail.

As an audiophile, I choose to subscribe to Stereophile. There are certainly other good high-end audio magazines available, but so far, this one's my favorite. I occasionally cringe at their deemphasis of scientific measurements of equipment, but even John Atkinson himself has hinted lately that maybe they've been mistaken to disregard them to the extent that they have. However, they have excellent equipment reviews, and you get a lot for your money with each issue. There's just loads of good information in each and every issue.

I'm also a relatively new subscriber to Listener, Hi-Fi and Music Review. This is a bi-monthly magazine with good editorials and reviews. What I like best is their sense of humor. Each magazine is quite amusing, from their replies to readers letters (love those bunnies!) to the rating system for audio equipment they review (I quote: "Poor value for the money. Bend over."). Highly recommended.

The other magazine subscriptions I receive as a result of belonging to a corresponding organization. I receive National Parks because I belong to the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA). I'm a bit of an environmentalist, and I've loved the U.S. National Parks since a very young age when I visited many of them with my family on our long summer vacations.