The Magazine Rack: New Reviews

This month's column inaugurates a slightly new format and style. My editor, Anna Katterjohn, is bravely giving me freedom to "write with personality" and go beyond the confines of five reviews a month. I intend to reveal my opinions and emulate the spirited, erudite banter of Bill Katz, author of LJ's magazine reviews until 1994. It's humbling to pick up where Katz, not to mention his esteemed sucessors Eric Bryant, Michael Colford, and Clayton Couch, left off. I'll also be interspersing thematic roundups of old and new publications, akin to the previous semiannaul incarnation of "The Magazine Rack" in print.

New periodicals worth reviewing have been a bit scarce, but as the magazines reviewed this month show, things are picking up. New launches aren't flooding in, but it's encouraging that the grim reaper has harvested fewer titles of late. Oxbridge Communications reports that "only 87 magazines folded this year as opposed to 279 in the first half of 2009; and 16 print magazines converted to online only formats as opposed to 43 in 2009."

August brings reviews of eye candy for daring bicyclists, a delightfully offbeat publication about garages, a music magazine, an academic literary theory journal, and a lit mag.

Freehub. 2010. s-a. $22.95. Aud: GA (Subject: Mountain biking. Issue examined: Vol.1, no.1, spring 2010)
Freehub very successfully combines the coffee-table visual impact of Flyfish Journal with the curation of online readers' submissions pioneered by the unfortunately short-lived Everywhere. Freehub's content is all freely available online at the publisher's website, but the lushly produced semiannual print magazine provides a more permanent memento for serious mountain bikers. The curation of the best photography and writing from passionate readers makes Freehub intense and authentic. Photos, essays, and interviews feature professional and serious amateur riders with a "no fear" attitude doing jumps and stunts in beautiful settings. Young and daring bicyclists will be delighted to discover this in their public libraries. It's the perfect thing to read while those broken bones heal.

Garage Slab. 2009. q. $12.95. Aud: GA (Subject: Garages. Issue examined: Vol.2, no.1, spring 2010)
Garage Slab is a tongue-in-cheek review of garages and the myriad activities that go on inside them. As the editor points out in the examined issue, that's why a carport is not a garage--people could see what's going on in there. Based in the Columbus, OH, area and launching nationwide, this affectionately homespun magazine captures Midwestern wit and ingenuity. The editors admit that they're learning as they go, and it shows in writing and graphics that range from amatuerish to brilliant. The rough spots are forgivable. The editors' genuine love of garages and their easygoing, wryly satirical voice make Garage Slab a great representation of Americana. While quirky and sometimes silly, it's never offensive (unless you own a carport) and is always in good fun. Highly recommended to bring smiles to patrons who have a garage or wish they did.

M Music and Musicians. 2010. 8/yr. $12. ISSN 2156-2377. Aud: GA (Subjects: Musicians-interviews; Sound-recording and reproducing. Issue examined: Vol.1, no.4, Jun. 2010)
Yes, another music magazine. What makes M distinctive is a well-crafted balance of interviews with famous musicians and stories on the latest instruments and equipment and the music business. M's writers talk with a surprising number of well-known artists. The examined issue has conversations with Jewel, Devo, Ozzy Osbourne, Herbie Hancock, and Sarah McLachlan, among others. The publisher tells me their business model includes sending an issue out with every order shipped from Sweetwater, a leading vendor of musical instruments and audio equipment. This led me to expect M to groan under the weight of advertisements, but in fact the comparatively few ads are unobtrusive. The magazine contains an impressive amount of smart, engaging content. M has a lot of competition, but it's a solid contender among popular music magazines.

Postmedieval. 2010. s-a. $375. ISSN 2040-5960. Aud: Ac (Subject: Civilization, Medieval. Issue examined: Vol.1, Issue 1/2, spring/summer 2010)
This "journal of medieval cultural studies" is a forum for literary theory. In the editors' words, "in an era of hyper-globalization we might consider the complex web of relations that inhere between the Now(s) and Then(s), the Here(s) and There(s) caught within the inter-temporal meshwork of our contemporary moment." Densly written articles in the examined issue address moral philosphy for cyborgs, "postmedieval fecopoet[h]ics," and the "tele-t/r/opical post-human." The English professors who write this stuff must understand it, or it wouldn't have passed peer review. And it's published by highly respected Palgrave Macmillan. So Postmedieval should be appropriate for libraries supporting practioners of literary theory, even if it's utterly baffling to the uninitiated.

Wild Apples. 2008. s-a. $30. ISSN 1941-9120. Aud: GA (Subject: Nature (Aesthetics). Issue examined: Issue 5, spring/summer 2010)
Wild Apples, "a journal of nature, art, and inquiry," is an eclectic literary magazine with poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and images of art created in various media. Handsomely produced in color on heavy matte paper, Wild Apples is intended to embody "common threads of care for the environment, engagement in social concerns, and commitment to the arts and the way they shape our world." The examined issue has the theme of praising animals and includes several homages to birds and an essay on magical animals in Papua New Guinea art. The constant stream of new literary journals makes it difficult to add many to library collections. But Wild Apples is a fine contribution to the burgeoning literature on human-animal interaction.