O, Shelves a-Leavened

Our weekly Everest of Links-By-the-Gross (e.g.) is no more.

A handpicked selection of magazines of general interest flying somewhat beneath the blogospheric horizon, and none the worse for it, culled from divers categories at Amazon.com, all sharing one standout feature: from each category, sorted by highest average customer review, each title chosen garnered an exceptional proportion of five-star reviews, in most cases five times as many thus as of four stars, with negligible proportions of outlying reviews of three, two or one stars. You are assumed long familiar with the veteran newsstand-bys for the upper-middlebrow reader – The Atlantic, Commentary, Harper’s, The Nation, National Review, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books,  The New York Times and its Book Review and Magazine, The New Yorker, The Progressive, Scientific American, Vanity Fair. It’s time to have a look at a few relative newcomers with devoted followings, given that most of the publications above were born over eighty years ago, and that the twenty-five-year-rule is almost a law of nature in the magazine world – any given title is really only at its peak of vitality during its first quarter-century. It says much about our literary culture that no truly first-rate general-interest publication in the grand manner, or journal of opinion of singular caliber, has set sail ‘tween these shores since 1925, the year of the launch of The New Yorker under Harold Ross (with The Nation and The New Republic bashing their skulls on the reef of the regrettable Russian experiment, in the form of Mr. Stalin’s “excessive” if “necessary”  judicial entertainments, c. 1935-1938). The New York Review of Books (1963-), whatever its occasional anthology-worthy longform singularities, has tracked the long general slide into the old-guard periodical hidebound, with a constricted, calcified, trophy-clutching, senior-Ivy Establishmentarian contributorial predictability from issue to issue thirty years ago, even (as Duchamp and Snagglepuss would say; perhaps Arthur Schlesinger’s too-tight bowtie was to blame, though the center-right New Criterion could itself be scored on like grounds more still, asphyxiative pastalavistacuffed neckwear not excepted). As to that relative newcomer from 1982, Vanity Fair (the title was also used under Frank Crowninshield to distinguished effect during the Jazz/Art Deco Age), if you don’t mind fifty-page tests of your Depp perception per issue, and find your Jolie good shows more in pictures from the pictures than in extended verbal cerebrations, fine, but if so, you’re probably not reading this post to begin with, unless you arrived here from our signature posts from last year sporting with nekkid people themselves sporting after a(n undressed) fashion.

But do take the unbuttoned approach of the latter just a bit, loosen the periodical ties that blind and sample an issue or two of some of the brighter spots on the transitional post-digital dead-tree-still newsstand. If we cannot make a citizens’ arrest of the general decline of print culture, we can at least obey The Police, who bade us, prophetically, prophylactically and tactically almost three decades ago, “when the world is running down” to “make the best of what’s still around.” One mighty bear the fools’-Russian Internyets have yet to slay is the joy of finding the latest glossy four-color slab of your favorite magazine in your Jurassic pole-in-hole mailbox, even if lugging homeward bound volumes of the September Vogue each year might require cadging a lift from the Soviet female Barbell laureate Ivana Kleanan Cherkassov. And now, by word of mouth from the Amazon to your coffee table, an almost-dozen titles at least one of which will prove a revelation worthy of the Monty Python flasher with the BOO! sign dangling ‘neath his splayed Burberry:

American Heritage. 6 5-star reviews, 1 of 4-star, total. Flagship quarterly of the nation’s past, a family and student favorite for a half-century, enlisting our most-admired historians at their most anthology-worthy accessible.

American Heritage of Invention & Technology. 9 5-star reviews, total. The hands-on offshoot of the previous title, for your inner village smithy, and Wright Brothers and Wired Sisters of all ages.

Bookmarks. 33 5-star reviews, 2 of 4-star. A comprehensive bi-monthly consumer guide to new books of general interest, distilling hundreds of reviews into easy-to-absorb capsules, with thematic bibliophile survey features.

Going Bonkers? 8 5-star reviews, 1 of 2-star, total. Popular psych/self-help to navigate the trials of common life, with a marked lightness of touch.

Mental Floss. 84 5-star reviews, 6 of 4-star. Things you never knew/untrivial trivia/bathroom reading for every room of the house/a reference book in magazine form/a party-sized bag of BBQ potato chips from the arts and sciences.

Orion. 2 5-star reviews, total. The leading literary arm of the American holistic, organic renaissance, ablaze to the lens and eye as well.

Smithsonian. 60 5-star reviews, 10 of 4-star. The nation’s attic in a monthly, a jewel in the crown among post-1960s magazine launches of over 1 million circulation. An 80% steal at $12.00 the year.

Spirituality & Health. 8 5-star reviews, 1 of 2-star, total. Tranquil balance for where soul meets body.

The Sun. 12 5-star reviews, 2 of 4-star. Freeform lit mag of rare intimacy, like a listener-supported FM station from your favorite college town. “A friend in my mailbox.”

The Wilson Quarterly. 8 5-star reviews, 1 of 4-star. Superlative blend of research summaries across all the humanities and social sciences, periodical roundups, original synoptical tours d’horizon of winds of change blowing in the scholarly world, admirably balanced in political import and uncommonly pleasing to the eye and hand alike.

World Literature Today. 3 5-star reviews, total. A modestly-priced academic bimonthly with a difference, its geography as wide as promised in its title.