The pleasures of "The New Yorker"

I had postponed the publishing of this entry but the death of John Updike on January 26 changed my mind. Updike, whom the BBC called the "Bard of Suburbia", was a resident writer at The New Yorker. I looked forward to reading his book reviews, literary surveys, and the occasional short story in the magazine. I thought he deserved the Nobel Prize but it simply didn't come his way. Now it's too late.

I have been a subscriber of The New Yorker for 20 years and look forward to its arrival every week. The first thing I do, upon finding the magazine in my mailbox, is to skim through the magazine just to make sure that my favorite writers have been featured again. I read the magazine mostly in bed, enjoying it at leisure before falling asleep.


The New Yorker doesn't need my praise, but it has shaped the way I think and therefore my life since I began to read it regularly. It does have a Jewish bias (which becomes annoying sometimes), but its liberalism is clear and that's what attracts me. The magazine draws upon the best American and British writers and also publishes short stories translated from other languages. Haruki Murakami, my favorite Japanese writer, makes a regular appearance with his short stories.

The covers are intriguing. I try to guess the title but never seem to guess correctly. They can be challenging at first, such as the cover shown below, which became controversial. What The New Yorker attempted to depict was everything that Barack and Michelle Obama had be called by the lunatic fringe, but many (obviously not regular New Yorker readers) thought that the magazine was trying to slander the Presidential candidate.

The articles may be long winded but that's how I like my reading. If I ever get stranded somewhere with nothing to do, a stack of New Yorker magazines will keep me going.



"The politics of fear"



"Reflections", which appeared after Obama won the Presidency


"Girls will be girls"