I’ve always read almost everything I can get my hands on. I have a serious bookstore problem addiction habit due to my irrational fear of not having my next book at hand right away after I finish the current one. I became a daily newspaper reader at a pretty young age, and fleshed out the headlines with news magazines when I got older. Magazines were also there when I decided I actually might not want to start reading the next book right away after finishing the current one.
The magazines are rarely there any more, though. I used to subscribe to several entertainment-related magazines. I’ve only got one subscription left – partly because all the others have folded, but that’s not my point. I keep the Entertainment Weekly subscription mainly because other members of my family read it. I get most of the content I want from it online these days.
After close to twenty years, my Newsweek subscription also became a casualty of my online-reading habits. I still get the newspaper delivered, but I don’t have time to read it at breakfast before I leave for work like I used to, so I’ve cut it back to just weekends…and most weekends, I don’t spend much time with it aside from getting the Sunday coupons. Those are the single biggest reason I continue to get the paper at home, to be honest; they pretty well offset the subscription cost. But since I am still a paid subscriber, I don’t feel bad if I’m getting most of the news from their website instead.
I was never a big reader of women’s magazines, but every now and then I’d latch on to one and stick with it for awhile. I discovered More magazine, “the magazine for women over 40,” right around the time I hit that particular milestone, and kept my subscription for several years. But then my life changed a bit…and the magazine really didn’t (although its tagline is now “for women of style & substance,” who I guess don’t have to be over 40). Has anyone else ever noticed that if you read magazines like this pretty regularly over a couple of years, they basically repeat themselves every few months? I might as well just find their subject matter online too.
One type of reading is bucking the trend, though. My book-buying habits are probably more active than ever – and while I do own an e-book reader (and like it a lot), I’m still killing plenty of trees. Online reading has primarily affected my book reading by chipping away at the time I have for it. Then again, it seems like online reading has chipped away at the time I have for reading almost everything else; the books are just the thing I most want to hold on to.
Not long ago, my husband pointed out an item he’d found on eBay that he’d thought of getting me as a (joke) Christmas gift: an issue of Tiger Beat magazine from 1977/78, with Shaun Cassidy, Scott Baio, and the stars of the original Battlestar Galactica on the cover. He decided not to buy it (starting bid of $15! seriously!?), but I’m not disappointed – that’s one magazine I stopped reading a very long time ago…although I think I may have had that particular issue.
Cross-posted at TheSmartlyLA.com
Edited to add a mention of one thing I AM reading this week – please check out my featured member post re: Banned Books Week at BlogHer.com!
