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I subscribed a few years ago on a whim after seeing it advertised in Harpers (which I still subscribe to and is one of the best publications around IMHO). It honestly went over my head and I didn’t continue my subscription.
Sad to hear this though, the quality (both in the editorials and the actual paper / product) is head and shoulders above just about any other publication I can recall. The paper quality reminded me a lot of Next Generation [1] that I used to save my pennies for back in the day.
These are interesting and fun. Each issue follows a particular theme (youth, risk, energy, time, etc.) and I occasionally wondered if they would run out, but they seemed to keep going. Articles were an interesting mix of deep dives and short bits that make you go "huh".
Lewis Lapham also has a podcast, where he interviews authors of books he's liked.
LQ was always a labor of love supported by a handful of Lapham's friends and supporters. He was recently still coming into the office everyday at 87 and was actively editing the journal.
Lapham dropped out of Cambridge (where his advisor was CS Lewis) and went to work as a beat reporter at the SF Chronicle in the 1950s. LQ was always his dream of the the perfect magazine, and it is great that he achieved it.
The issues are evergreen. Some of my favorites are Technology, Celebrity and Swindles & Frauds.
If there is one takeaway from all the issues it is that there is nothing new under the sun.
This is not a huge surprise. They've been extremely behind schedule putting out print issues for quite some time. I hope they can turn things around soon - I'm a big fan.
I'm not a fan but I'm really glad they exist. It's like just off from something I really want, and it's clearly a good thing for a market that isn't quite me (and where there aren't many great alternatives). I hope they get their feet under them.
I knew things were goin to get tough (at least in the US) for magazines when I walked into a Barnes and Noble that was recently redone and the magazines were moved from the bottom floor near the entrance to the top floor in the back by the restrooms.
That might be an anti-theft move, though?
Probably, but out of sight is out of mind, doubly so when it comes to merchandising. Magazines are meant to be seen cover-on just like an LP, and the shelf space is usually negotiated with the publisher. It's all a science from what I hear; my sis worked as head buyer of independent bookstore chains in Bay Area. She was able to cross the aisle to publishing side and works under an editor, reading the slush pile and making notes and preparing a short list for her superiors; she's now paid to actually read instead of having to do so essentially unpaid as a buyer for multiple stores with different demographics.
There's no good business reason for putting products out of your eye line and out of reach, basically. It's just a shame and the economics of bookselling are so hard, even in a erudite town like SF.
It would be a shame to lose Lapham's in print. It embodies the idea that keeping a library is to maintain the breadth and depth of human knowledge as desired at a moment's notice.
I’m part of the problem. I subscribed for two years but stopped because I was hardly starting on one before the next was out. The time slips by so fast…
Same here. They're so great, but I never seem to finish one.
This magazine makes me feel dumb - I could never get into it despite many attempts. It takes me a while to get into a book, and jumping into one snippet after another never felt right to me.
There's always (insert city) review of each other's books to make everyone else seem unhip, unenlightened, and uneducated because they didn't osmote obscurant works 10-50 years sooner.
A healthy perspective is to look at the potential wells of knowledge and experience as infinite, and to sip the firehoses no more than one can handle and without going down every rabbit hole, but do explore a few every now and then. Read and live enough, the archetypes and patterns tend to fold insouciantly into similar themes seen before. In my view, it's the novelty of unusual idiocracies and tangential minutia that develops plot and characters.
I really liked the format, being able to pick a topic on your mind, grab the issue for it, and read curated writings, perspectives, and history on that topic. For that reason, I subscribed until the USPS started rolling them up to cram into my mailbox, and Lapham's couldn't alter the packaging to protect them.
I still collected them, just secondhand off eBay, and have them all. I guess I really do have them all now.
I still browse BN and buy them when I see a new edition out. I probably have about 30 from the past 15 years. I like the format and his preambles, but I too am unsurprised by struggles of a niche literary journal.
I was wondering why I haven't gotten a new issue in a while.
Lapham's health and age declining also doesn't help.
LQ was nice, but generally seemed too inside its own head, I stuck with Monocle as a subscription and would pick up LQ spot issues whenever the topic piqued my interest.