Thursday, March 15, 2007

THE 51 BEST MAGAZINES EVER

Following my confession last week to being something of a magazine-aholic I was delighted by two events this afternoon.

First was my discovery on the Web of a story by Graydon Carter on
the best 51 magazines ever. Now this guy's opinion is worth something as he has been editor of the wonderful Vanity Fair magazine for over 15 years.
The story is well worth a read; see where your favourite magazines are ranked, if they appear at all of course!
My all time favourite came in at number 2 - The New Yorker, headed off for the 1st position by Esquire.


The second event occurred as I was buying the February issue of Gourmet Traveller at Magazzino, my excellent local magazine store in Ponsonby Road, Auckland. I was buying this issue to get the recipe for Sicilian Calamari Salad which I plan to make on Saturday night.












As I was passing across the $9 I noticed on the counter a big fat A4 format magazine I had not seen before.

Something about it arrested me.
It was called "MONOCLE- a briefing on global affairs, business, culture and design."
Issue 01 Volume 01.
This looks interesting I thought, then on opening it I saw the Editor in Chief's name and immediately I knew I had to buy it.

Tyler Brulee.

My mind flashed back to 1996 when in the same store I came across another magazine for the first time - Wallpaper. I bought that first issue of Wallpaper, and was totally entranced by it and its design. So much so that I e-mailed the owner/founder/editor, one Tyler Brulee and offered my congratulations , and best wishes for the future of the magazine.
It was so cutting edge at the time, like a breath of fresh air. He continued to publish his stunning magazine but I suspect struggled financially for over a year before selling the magazine to Time Warner. But the flavour of the magazine pretty much remained until he left in 2002.

Now he is back with another new and exciting magazine, MONOCLE, totally different in content and appearance to Wallpaper, but chock-a-block with stories from around the world from some very fine contributors, and of course profusely illustrated.

Thank goodness the weekend is approaching because I'm going to have to take a day off to read the first issue which runs to 242 pages plus a 16 page inserted illustrated story (read comic) introducing a new hero to maintain world order.

Congratulations Tyler, and all the best for a long and successful life for MONOCLE.

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