Magazines Subscriptions

Over the last 20+ years or so, I had some fun in subscribing to different magazines and reading them on a regular basis. These magazines included - Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Canadian Business, Ivey Business Journal (I paid good money for it until they turned it FREE and never return my unused PAID subscription money), many computer magazines, Communications Arts (probably my most expensive mag sub and it worths every penny! some great free content), The International Design Magazine (I fell in love with Dyson Vacuum since it was covered in the April 2000 issue of I.D.), Psychology Today, and the more exotic ones like the University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, plus The New England Journal of Medicine (I did enjoy my one year subscription and tried to think and read like doctors (big smile)). I read a lot of Wired and Fast Company but then they set a stupid high Canadian subscription prices, plus most of their stuff are online quickly (even a few years back).

Now, how many magazines do I subscribe to? Well, not even one! My friend Margaret is brave and she subscribes to and reads The Economist! I know The Economist is a great source of information and supposed to be “Good For Me” (like Cod Liver Oil) but I could never stand reading more than a few articles in it at a time (leaving 99% of the magazine to waste).

So here is what I do these days. Like this morning, I spent 90 minutes just browsing the magazines section in the library and then borrowed a stack of 8 magazines to read one (or may be two) articles in each magazine. Ha ha, no wonder many magazines are trying hard to re-invent themselves (e.g. Business Week).

When I find some time, I will blog about the 8 magazine articles that I borrowed to read. I will see if I can find the link to them for you as well. Happy reading.

To me, library is the greatest equalizer of knowledge (thus “power”, if you want to think of it that way) and experiences. I paid my $12 per year. And then, I periodically clean up their magazines, their books, their DVDs, etc to find stuff that I enjoy and find interesting.

With borrowed materials, one thing I missed is the ability to mark up the magazine/book while I read but I can make a photo copy for personal research if I need to. (smile) I will later try to blog about the 8 articles I borrowed today, possibly with links to them so you can read them as well (if they are available online).

Happy reading and learning.

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14th Feb, 2008 Update: Here are the links to the articles that I borrowed that day.