I sure have. I have stacks of them. I love eye candy. So when I'm done with thumbing, I rip out what immediately sets my soul on fire to thumb through some more. Eventually, I guess I'll recycle the torn out parts too. I really liked Glamour and Women's World for the hair and the cute mini makeovers. I always thought I'd do the recipes in WW, but then I found Saveur (which I still haven't outgrown), Cooking Light, Bon Appetit. I outgrew them too, when I found websites were so much easier to navigate. Epicurious, Williams-Sonoma, FoodTV, and then, ultimately, GardenWeb's very own Cooking forum. Honestly, the cooking forum is the best place. What makes it better? They too have been to those websites, tried the recipes, tweaked them or just threw them out. But that certainly made any magazine for cooking obsolete. Except Saveur. It's so pretty! And how else can one travel the world, learning about foods in such a fine way? I guess I could watch Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations; he's just as fine (in so many ways! including telling the native ways to prepare and eat the food he's researching). But there is no replacement for the fashion magazines. I did just resubscribe to Glamour now that my school days are dwindling and the remodeling is approaching a finish. I relish the thought of mindless page turning. I'll read again later, but for now I'm burnt out. And maybe I'll step up the magazines. I never thought I was worthy of Vogue, but who says? Can you "grow up" to a magazine?

Marda, Let me give you the sad truth about modern magazine publishing. You may have outgrown Country Living, but they won't necessarily let you go. About 6 years ago I subscribed to Garden Design magazine until I realized that it offered very little practical advice anymore and had evolved into a magazine delivering what I call garden pornography - i.e. lots of articles for rich people who have more money than sense. I declined to renew my subscription in 2002, but the magazine continues to appear in my mailbox month after month. Why? A friend in the business tells me that it's easier for them to keep sending me the magazine & counting me in their circulation numbers than dropping me from their rolls. This makes no sense to me, but I keep getting the magazine & giving it to people who are interested in it.

I've outgrown most of the fashion magazines as they don't speak to the way I live at all. And some, like The New Yorker were dropped because I just don't have the time to read 50,000 word articles on a weekly basis.

Right now my favorite mags are Vanity Fair, Southern Living, Fine Gardening and Garden Gate DH is loyal to Gourmet & Robin, he thinks Anthony Bordain hung the moon. Have you read his book Kitchen Confidential? It's hilarious & really makes you think twice about what you order in a restaurant.

Scientific American was one of our favorites. Then, years ago, it dumbed down until it seldom had anything in it worth while. I think it has gone from an informative science magazine for adults, to something that could be used in the fifth or sixth grade classroom.

but, I can't say that I "outgrew" it. It was more like it deserted me.

The "Smithsonium" is another one that we used to enjoy a great deal. Not too long ago, we subscribed to it again. After the one year subscription ran out, I didn't renew.

If you'd have asked me my favorite magazine up until about 2001, I'd have said "Fast Company," which I'd never consider even reading these days because the content no longer interests me. Shortly thereafter, I subscribed to every gardening magazine there was. (Seriously, I had something like 10 subscriptions.) It got so bad that I began to recognize photos that were being "recycled" in other magazines, and I could tell you the publication and the month in which they were originally used. I also subscribed to a ton of decorating and DIY magazines. Of my subscriptions in these categories, only "Birds & Blooms" (sort of a gardening magazine), "GreenPrints," and "Better Homes & Gardens" remain... BH&G is on the chopping block when my subscription runs out... They started allowing advertisements to mimic editorial and I lost all respect for them when that happened...

Oh, I 'outgrew' "Southern Living" when we moved to Wisconsin. I had only subscribed to get a feel for Southern sensibilities so they wouldn't seem so foreign to me, and it was an intriguing read during our four years in Atlanta, but they weren't really applicable in the land of cheese. I attempted to replace it with "Midwestern Living" but it never interested me as much because it was so familiar it almost lacked inspiration for me.

I also subscribed to a whole range of cooking magazines, including, but not limited to the ones Rob mentioned. Of these, only "Fine Cooking" and "Everyday Food" remain, and I'll happily renew these subscriptions when the time comes. I am very turned off by cooking magazines that run more luxury watch ads than recipes, that pay faux hommage to "simple, artisanal" food producers and farms... and then sell their ad space to the most over-the-top and ridiculous of consumeristic enterprises... the intellectual dissonance annoys me. What I want from a cooking mag is one that is full of recipes, methods, is seasonal, accessible, offers complete menus and tips and schedules for make-aheads for special occasions, and has recipes that are healthy and reasonably easy to pull off. I don't want to be impressed (or intimidated) by the impeccable tastes of others --- I want to learn a bit about food, get inspired to be creative, and walk away with practical things I can add to my repertoire.

We also subscribe to "Versatile Hunting Dog." I can't imagine outgrowing that one so long as we have a versatile hunting dog in the house...

I don't get any of them anymore ever since they went to using peach and light orange font colors. I can't read them without a magnifying glass. I barely even scan them in the stores.

I need to renew "Green Prints", somehow it fell over the edge and I miss it.
Currently the only publications I subscribe to are "The Sun", sometimes the content could be described as somewhat depressing, but the writing is always good. I also get the
"Anderson Valley Advertiser", published in Boonville. It is so unique, can't really be classified. The publisher is a curmudgeon, leaning way left , the paper is definitely a challenge.
They do have local (our County) news, sometimes told from a different point of view, they have an excellent report about the weekly County Supervisors meetings, Sheriff's log and also have opinion peaces from Alexander Cockburn and others.
It makes one think a little, sometimes get irritated.
His Masthead says: "Newspapers should have no friends" attributed to Pulitzer.
We do need rabble rousing gadflies, lest we become complacent.

What I want from a cooking mag is one that is full of recipes, methods, is seasonal, accessible, offers complete menus and tips and schedules for make-aheads for special occasions, and has recipes that are healthy and reasonably easy to pull off. I don't want to be impressed (or intimidated) by the impeccable tastes of others --- I want to learn a bit about food, get inspired to be creative, and walk away with practical things I can add to my repertoire.

You may want to check out Cook's Illustrated. Love the Mag. High quality, no glossy pages, no advertising and very educational. I can't remember too many recipes but that doesn't mean they are not there. I have a tendency to get quite a few online.

That is a wonderful magazine,almost like reading a text book and the recipes they do have are usually pretty basic with a twist. I've tried several and they were very good.

I too, was a Sun fan, plus the Whole Earth Review (used to be CoEvolution Quarterly), and National Geographic. For years I got Mothering Magazine, a wonderful friend. Catalogs galore, they were kind of like magazines for me. But for the past 12 years, I get no magazines at all, as having them sent from the States is prohibitively expensive. I love Wired when I can get my hands on it, Whole Earth bit the dust. "Women's" magazines have nothing to say to me at all, never read them. There are some nice ones here, mostly nature, the Hebrew version of NG, etc, but I never get them. It's rare enough I buy a newspaper! When I go to the States, I sit around reading my sisters' mags and catalogs avidly. I stuff as many as I can sneak away with in my suitcase and bring them home for homesick relief!

Jaz, When I was working & responsible for e-commerce back in 1999 & 2000, I read Fast Company from cover to cover. However, now that I'm 8 years from that world, I have to admit that technology has passed me by.

I must admit I cannot resist People when I'm in a doctor's office, but I also have to admit that these days I don't know what half the "celebrities" they talk about are famous for.

I used to subscribe to a whole gamut of them. When I was at my mother's house half the time for the last couple years, I just read what she subscribed to.

We have none now. Women's mags aren't pertinent to me. Most center around issues I have either surpassed lightyears ago, like how to save on groceries.....hah, I could write my own articles. How to lose weight. I don't need to. How to improve my sex life, or raise my kids. A good listening ear, a few compliments and a good meal everyday seems to keep my marriage decently on track and my kids are raised just fine, thank you.

Fashion? Who cares?

Gardening? I have been a professional enough years in this area, it irritates me no end to see mistakes in print, or a magazine with a few nice photos and pages of ads.

Used to take Mother Earth, but I think the quality and usefulness of their magazine has declined. Reader's Digest? Hah. Their subscription department is your worst nightmare. They refused to accept the fact of my mother's death, and kept dunning her estate for a subscription they sent after I declined them when she died. I paid them off so they couldn't hold up her probate process, but now that it's settled, they'll never get me for a customer again. Their automatic subscription renewals, and customer service departments are a joke.

Trade mags. Got them for years, and they're free to professionals, but you have to once in a while reup for them. I don't even do that.

Wait, I do get one free professional farming magazine. I don't know where they got my address, but it has a lovely cover of original artwork each issue, and a good classified section for farm equipment.

Southern Living was the last magazine standing after the move,
now it is going to expire and I'm not going to renew it.

I never have time to read them anyway.

I always loved Birds and Bloom but I had about 20 magazines
coming to the house and they were stacked all over the place
waiting to be read. Now the only reading I do is at night
when I go to bed and I'd much rather read my books.

I wonder how much television and the advent of the internet is responsible for the decline of magazines? When I was small, every week saw 4 or 5 different magazines in the mailbox and another dozen at the beginning of each month. When I was old enough to be on my own, there were easily a couple dozen that I enjoyed and subscribed to ~~ budget choosing between hamburger and a subscription? reading won every time, lol.

Nowadays, I read Cook's Illustrated not so much for the recipes as for the pleasure of the behind-the-scenes progress in development, but I don't subscribe: DD buys me the annual (a Christmas gift that I like) and everything else is on-line. I picked up the M.E.N. recently, but ~sigh~ there really wasn't anything that hadn't already been talked about 30 years ago, the same problem OG exhibited. Content repetition has helped me decide on the cessation of subscriptions... the new reader needs the info, but the old-timer has already read it too often. The issues that aren't saying same-old same-old seem to have been overrun by ads, or have underwritten articles ~ I remember when an article was always at least a dozen long paragraphs and often of several pages duration, but they seem to have shrunk through the years. I attribute the shrinkage to the development of the limited attention span which occurred in conjuction with the 30-second TV ad.

The desirability of some of the magazines changed simply because I have changed. Whole Earth, Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening: been there, done that and usually a few decades sooner than the editors. Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker, Life, Newsweek, Southern Living, BHG, and similar have either deceased or seem stuck in a time-warp; interesting but not too very much. The Washingtonian is aimed mostly at middle-upper yuppiehood, and I'm not there. Nor do I sew anymore, and crafts are few and far between. My preferences in decor has gone past the latest re-do, and talk about ads taking over the magazine?! My taste now runs to Fine Woodworking, Architectural Digest, and others of that ilk. But no magazines to my door; I prefer to go on-line.

My father subscribed to every model railway and ship modeling magazine you can think of. The house had stacks of magazines behind every door, on every flat surface. He never threw any out. Shelves would collapse from the weight of accumulated magazines. You had to sweep them off the sofa to sit down. The garage was full of boxes of them. It took my mother a year to get rid of most of them after he died, and she told me the other day she still has some piles to go.

It created a life-long distaste in me for magazines. I read one: History Today, which then gets thrown out!

Still have stacks of unread magazines here and I'm letting most go when subscription runs out. I find myself making notes to read further on internet about most things and rarely get back to the article whether on gardening, history, politics or whatever. Liked Vogue's colorful glossy pages mostly for papier-mache beads...lol

Still enjoy New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Harper's plus New York magazine but probably because I've subscribed for so many years they're like family. But sometimes they too go unread for weeks then I'll take a few days offline to catch up. If I weren't getting what they call a professional discount from my years in the eighties at a city magazine they'd go too probably...lol I'm afraid I'd miss them and have to subscribe at regular rates which I can ill afford now. I remember getting student rates for years from Time long after college years. lol

Sarah, DH has railroad modeling mags dating back to the seventies here in garage...hope when we sell his railway gear some hobbyist will take them off my hands. I'd donate them except I'm afraid they'd be destroyed. I remember being thrilled with finding old gardening mags at Goodwill when I first started gardening but the clerk said they were about to toss them. Same with American Heritage...which was a great read always...I bought older ones at GW and subscribed for years then donated to grammar school for kids to cut up for reports.

DH is at an assisted living facility and along with current mags I've sent a few I'd found from the early 1900s thru the WWII years...Jim said everyone enjoyed the old ads and articles. so if any of you have very very old mags, might pass them on to a local nursing home, etc. josh

I love old magazines. I remember when my mom & I were cleaning out my great-aunt's house after she had to go into a nursing home. She had years & yeas of them & the women's magazines were the best - really a sociological study of the times. Remember when magazines had short stories & serialized novels?

I actually go early for my appointment at the dentist because he has knockout magazines, many of the ones mentioned here including Saveur, People, Bon Appetit, National Geographic, Sunset and Cooking Light. And they are all current!

It's a great place - I actually enjoy going there and they are tops at the dental game too.

LOL, Sheila! My dentist only has hunting magazines and children's books... but he makes up for it by having massage exam chairs, flat screen pull down TVs on the ceiling and spa-like bathrooms with fancy soaps that smell nice. I try not to ever show up early, but always make a point of using his bathroom... even if only to wash and moisturize my hands!

It's ironic that I have such strong opinions about ads and advertising... after having spent my day collecting artwork for the magazine in which I sell ad space! At work, nothing makes me happier than increased ad sales...

Weebus, I've subscribed to Cooks Illustrated. You're right that it's a good mag for all the reasons you mentioned. I own their pasta book and would go so far as to say that no one with a pasta machine should be without this book... but here's what irks me about their editorial style: 1) they repeat content; 2) they go into WAY too much detail on their elaborate testing methods and present their findings as if it's possible for there to be a singularly correct answer (and they have found it). It's a good resource, but I find myself sassing their "tone." Plus, they're obnoxious in trying to upsell their online and book content.

Jazz..............you must go to MY dentist! They'll throw a heated blanket on your legs, too, if you're chilly. To top it all off, he is a ringer for Tom Selleck.

can a lurker jump in? an old time lurker who just cant find the time to be here as much as i'de like?
good. okay,..i out grew Cooking Light, but everytime i see it on the news stands i wish i hadnt. that's because i really didnt outgrow it, i just ran out of magazine room in the house. there is only so many magazines one can keep forever and i passed my limit years ago. but i still like Cooking Light . havent found a recipe in any of their mags that i didnt like. of all the ones i tried everyone came out great and while some were a little complicated they all looked and tasted exactly as described in the mag.
i sound like a darn salesman, dont i? so many cookbook promise great things tho, but when you make the recipe it just doesnt turn out edible. that never happens with Cooking Light. darn,....i am going to resubscribe, i talked myself into it...
g

Shoot! my dentist left town with the denture money he had
collected from some of his patients, so I'm a dentist
orphan or something. I finally found a new group that will
take us but we have to start all over.

I doubt they look like Tom, have a flat screen tv or
heated blankets, I do however expect that they will have
the best bill collecting methods known to mankind.

Another interesting thread segue-way. I hesitate to get started on dentists. IMO, when you move they are the hardest medical professionals to find. We finally found a good one here & he does have great magazines. It's in his office that I get caught up on the trash magazines like People & Entertainment Weekly (is that what it's called?) He also has those pornographic lifestyle mags like Conde Nast Travel, so I can indulge in where I'd go if I had a zillion dollars.

My dentist is an animal lover,in fact he has an embedded pool in his outer office where he keeps one of his collections of koi. He has cat,dog,fish and horse magazines along with the others in his office. I read my first and last cat magazine there. I think clothes for dogs look silly,unless it's a hairless and he/she has to be outside in freezing temps,but I never realized people dressed their cats up in clothes too. Who in their right mind would try to dress a cat?????? If you put little hats and sweaters on your pets..sorry if i offended.LOL

LOLOL. I only had one pet who actually enjoyed being dressed, and that was my little lhasa apso Chipper. He was old when we rescued him, and we bought all the doggies sweaters that year. Our other dog hated his and did contortions until he got out of it.....but Chipper loved his and wouldn't let us take it off. It would, of course, get to stinking pretty quickly, and to get him out of it, without being bit, we'd have to hold something really good, like a hamburger in front of his nose, just out of reach and at the same time hold on to the back of his sweater and he slipped out the big neck-hole. My DD's Rhodesian ridgebacks wears sweaters or a horse-blanket style coat in the winter, but his breed is like you said, a tropical dog and he has little hair and gets seriously chilled outside for belonging to an outdoorswoman, who is outside a lot.

I love to dress my cats and i have the scars to prove it.

LOLOLOL Pam. I love to see pics of cats who are dressed up in human clothing, or even worse Hallowe'en drag. They just look soooooooooo P.O.ed. Mine won't even wear collars. They are nudists.