Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 90
 The Magazine to Impress Others that You'll Actually Like December 13, 2004
Whitney (Nashville, Tennessee)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
I have been subscribing to the New Yorker for five years now, and it has been a very enlightening experience. The New Yorker does its part in covering big news stories, but it's not really a news magazine. The perspectives are unique (and admittedly lean to the left), and the kind you're not likely to get elsewhere. The authors use the first person because they tend to be part of the stories they're covering. Take Jon Lee Anderson, probably the most credible reporter covering the Middle East today. His "Letters From" various cities involve accounts of his meetings with locals and leaders.
Other segments are more like NPR stories--unique perspectives on largely uncovered topics that aren't time-sensitive. You'll get in-depth looks into developments in medicine, law, architecture, etc., that otherwise wouldn't get on your radar unless you were in that profession. And, the writers incorporate the "larger questions" in stories focused on recent events. Like Malcolm Gladwell's recent account of a playwright who plagiarized material from a former article written by him. He parlayed his personal struggle into a good summary of legal and ethical positions on the use or development of one person's idea by another.
I have grown to look forward to reading the Fiction selection each week. Sometimes I don't like the piece, but I enjoy getting the chance to read writers that I normally wouldn't and those that I normally would.
Additionally, the magazine has added more dedicated issues--most recently the "Food" issue, in addition to standbys like the "Style" and "Fiction" issues. I loved the "Food" issue, especially one writer's account of the search for truly authentic pasta that involved a work night in Mario Batali's kitchen and a trip to Italy.
I enjoy the balance of hard news, balanced interest stories, and arts that the New Yorker provides. I began my subscription to get a different perspective than what I got from local Southern news, and I keep it for the same reasons and many more.
Left Wing? You must be kidding. September 15, 2005
RenegadeTrout (Midwest USA)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
Along with the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker is a must weekly read for me. I read it, cover to cover except for the ads, for 45 minutes to an hour each night before sleep. Roger Angell on baseball is the best; Lane and Denby tag teamming on the movie reviews; Joan Acocella on dance (Dance! I've read more about it than I've ever seen), and the list goes on.
Left wing? Several reviewers here said the magazine is left wing. This is hilarious. Obviously these people have never read a left wing maqgazine, and such comments only illustrate the extent to which the political spectrum in the US has shifted rightward. For left wing try: The Nation, The Progressive, Dissent, or Monthly Review. The New Yorker is as middle brow bourgeois as it gets.
Best Magazine in America June 21, 2006
J. Velker (St. Davids, Pennsylvania USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
The New Yorker is consistently the most well-written, readable, and important magazine in America. For anyone wondering how the Abu Ghraib scandal broke: New Yorker. For anyone wondering which magazine wrote a prescient profile on John Kerry when he was perhaps the biggest long shot for the 2004 Democratic nomination: New Yorker. Simply put, the New Yorker, as many reviewers have already acknowledged, is the best written and most substantial magazine hitting newstands every week.
For those who criticize the magazine as "snobby," feel free to go back to Time or Newsweek, which dilute what might be good reporting with hundreds of ads and the twice-a-year "Who Was the Real Jesus?" issue to perk up sales.
For those who criticize the magazine as too liberal, I will be the first to admit that liberalism (in its traditional sense) is a motivating factor in the magazine's editorial decisions. But if you think the New Yorker "tows the Democratic line," I'd advise you to compare it to the Nation or other such publications. Normally, the New Yorker's reportage is so intricate and off-the-beaten-path that politics rarely enters the debate.
Pick up an issue and actually read every article (even the long ones). It's incredibly rewarding.
Stay In Touch With Civilization January 5, 2003
M. P. Barry (The Woodlands, TX)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
For as long as I can remember, and for years before that, The New Yorker has offered intelligent writing (and clever cartoons too) aimed at thinking readers who are assumed to meet a mininum cultural literacy standard. For those of us exiled in the distant territories, it provides hope in the form of 48 doses each year of civilization that remind us of our roots and help prevent descent into barbarism. I think of the regular reading of The New Yorker as a form of therapy to counteract the base influences of People, In Style, Time and similar magazines, each written in a style that presumes a degree of idiocy among its readers. For anyone willing to give The New Yorker a chance (assuming that its current subscribers won't need to read this review), I think that exposure to writers like John McPhee, Ken Auleta, Roger Angell and others, plus doses of a very urbane point of view, can help counteract some of the truly evil influences of modern society and provide a standard of reference that once was common but which has passed us by.
 good magazine with sensible left of center views January 15, 2005
A. Rajamani (Portland, OR)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
New Yorker is one of the best magazines available in the US. It has a good mixture of articles on current events, culture, fiction, humor. And one shouln't forget those notorious cartoons. The lengths of the articles range from the very long to the very short, and should amply sustain one's weekly need for reading material.
Please be aware that all articles have a coat of liberal paint. But the New Yorker is probably the most sensible left of center media source in this country.
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