Can we talk about your favorite magazines?

[Teeni at work]

I'm curious. Over the past couple of years, I have REALLY downsized my subscriptions. I used to a number of horse magazines, and now just get a couple. I didn't have time to read them, and when I did make time, I didn't find what I was reading all that informative.

Currently I get Equus and The Horse. I used to subscribe to the Arabian Horse Times, Arabian Horse World, Horse and Rider.

For non-horsey magazines, I absolutely LOVE Real Simple. I've also been impressed with Cottage Living, which is fairly new. Another I like is inspired living, which features a lot of Sarah Susanka's ideas--I love her books and hubby and I designed our house around her ideas. My little sister works for Country Home, so I get that for free and really like it. Because Country Home is owned by Meredith Corp, I also have access to a lot of their publications, but Country Home is my favorite. I'm also a HUGE fan of Mother Earth News. Over the years, I've subscribed to several similar magazines, but MEN is still my favorite.

I'm interested to hear what magazines you love, and why. Care to share?

[qhaddict]

I'm glad you posted this!

Currently I only subscribe to the QH Journal. I'm going to drop that subscription in March though because the Journal just isn't providing me with much other than eye candy. I love looking at the pictures of studs and such and seeing show results, but I'd prefer to have REAL information!

I used to subscribe to Horse & Rider, the Miniature Horse World magazine, and I think I also subscribed to Western Horseman for a while. A friend also sent a load of Equus magazines to me a while back. I expect I'll subscribe to H&R or Western Horseman again soon.

Sometimes I also grab my mom's Prevention magazines - lots of interesting health information there!

[Mary Ann]

I also subscribe to The Horse and Equus. Those are my only two horsey magazines. I also don't find much in the others (Horse Illustrated, Practical Horseman, etc) that informative. It seems like they feel like they need to get it said in a thousand words or less, and I'm left with questions and feeling unsatisfied. The Horse and Equus do a better job of going more in depth.

I used to subscribe to Country Home, and loved it. Also Ladies Home Journal, because my mom subscribed too many times and when she died, had six years left on her subscription. My dad had the subscription switched to me. I also get Prevention; tons of health information there.

Hubby just recently dropped Consumer Reports, but still gets Investor's Business Daily, Business Week, Computer World, Information Week, E Week, and Stocks and Commodities Magazine. I use them for kindling.

[linda]

I get Equus and The Gaited Horse. I just gave away my complete set of Equus to the local 4-H. It cleared out about 8 feet of shelf space for me to put other things. I found I never dug through those back issues--their "index" was way too primitive. I did complain loudly to the publisher about their lack of electronic indexing.

But, my favorite magazine is Fast Company. You can find it at >www.fastcompany.com<. It is so inspiring! And you can access past articles on-line using their search feature. You don't even have to be a subscriber to use their website. I bought lots of people subscriptions for Christmas. If they like it half as much as I do, they will be pleased.

Linda

[lesfire]

Western horseman is my all time favorite but I don't get it anymore, I can't afford anything extra anymore. I get Child magazine and Parenting magazine, but I have no clue why, I didn't subscribe to them and no one gave the subscriptions to me as a gift so I've yet to figure that one out. I have to say as magazines for entertainment they pretty much suck. Although the stories the parents write in about things their kids have said are cute. I've had one potty training article that helped me out some. As far as other magazines, if I had the money to, I would subscribe to western horseman again, a fashion/woman type magazine like Glamour or First, Southern Living, a travel magazine, Readers Digest and National Geographic and some sort of puzzle magazine, you know the type word puzzles I could do when I'm bored at work.

[Mary Ann]

Lesfire, the advertisers in those magazines pay for your subscription in hopes that you'll allocate your limited resources (a common plight among new parents) toward their products instead of the competitors.

I remember getting them too; I don't know that there was much in them that was helpful to me either, but they were fun to glance through when I was bored and couldn't afford to do another single thing. The library was my best friend in those days.

Oh, and could you e-mail me? freestyle farm at kwisp dot com.

[Teeni at work]

The link for fast company isn't working? I'd really like to check it out. Sounds interesting!

[KarenN]

Western Horseman and H&R, though I just dropped H&R and am going back to Equus. I LOVE WH, but then those are the things I do - western events, ranching, etc. Equus is great for health care info.

I get Writers Digest now and then at the newsstand, but I don't subscribe to any other mags. My secretary gives me her back copies of Southern Living now and then - but I only get the recipes out of those. She buys me their annual cookbook every year for Christmas.

[linda]

Fast Company-->www.fastcompany.com< worked for me. Here is the link for the page it took me to.
www.fastcompany.com/homepage/index.html

I hope you like this as well as I do. So often we need something positive in our life to inspire us to get back up and take another run at that wall.
Linda

[Teeni at work]

Their website is sure cool! I asked my sister about it and she said that she really likes it too. She's going to bring home the latest copy to peruse.

I envy that about her job--unlimited magazine access! And she gets paid to browse through them!!!

[Marci]

Well I don't get any magazines anymore. I found the horsey ones to all be the same old stuff over and over. About the only one that had anything really helpful in it was "the horse" its a TB type mag but it has ll the latest breaking health stuff-but heck even that now that I am on line its old news by the time they publish it. LOL
I used to love western horseman for their Oct horse breed issue but last I saw they cut that out. Equus used to be a good magazine (yes I agree though it was very hard to find the articles in it) but now its just like all the rest.
Now I find too that I get the mag home and never read it, so that way its a waste of good money.

[Mary Ann]

Marci, do you ever get All That Is? It's put out by a rescue called Spring Farm Cares in New York, and Dawn Hayman, a very gifted animal communicator, is their founder and sort of their centerpiece. I've had readings in the past by both her and Marta Williams, who just came out with a book on communicating recently.

All That Is is really a newsletter, but it's like a magazine and runs about fifty pages. Many times they have pics of one of their animals, and then a discussion of things they've done or said. Some of these animals are helpers in their workshops, and have endless patience as people learn to communicate. If you can pick things up from pictures, this newsletter (or their website) might be helpful to you.

After having Dawn read some of my animals about ten years ago, the way I feel about animals, the buying and selling, their feelings and their care--- everything shifted. It was an epiphany for me. You might like their newsletter/magazine, too.

[Marci]

Thanks for the heads up Mary Ann, I will check that out-I remember finding a place like that but dang its too far away to visit But boy pointers are always helpful.
You know the weird thing is before I bought my mare Shadow I bought and sold many horses, yes most were horses that needed help and I would try to find them good home. But with Shadow she was the first horse that I couldn't sell becauses of how she would feel about it. Before that I hadn't given it a thought.

Ohhh I just did a search for spring farm cares and can't find a link for the newsletter but I did find a page of one of her students...its got lots of wonderful info. Thank You.
Here is a link. www.hummingbirdfarm.org/newsletters/newsletter.html

[Sheryl]

I subscribe to a couple of horse magazines and find the quality disappointing. I guess they are trying to appeal to the broadest number of horse people which is probably not the best approach. I find the newsletter from my local back country horseman chapter to be more informative and "serious" in content then the big glossy color magazines. I was especially disappointed in one called "Trail Rider."

My favorite magazine is a science manazine called "Discover." I don't understand every nuance of every article in there, but I like the spectrum of topics and depth of articles is sufficient to really "get it." As you might guess I also like the in depth coverage of organizations like NPR and the Wall Street Journal!

I wonder if there is a market for a more "in depth" horsey magazine that also has pretty pictures?

[AmberC]

Nothing right now. I used to subscribe to a whole bunch of horse magazines, Horse Illustrated, Practical Horseman, Horse & Rider, Equus. I got Western Horseman for a year too, I think. But I was really not finding enough useful information in them anymore to make it worth the money I was spending on them. Most of it has already been covered to death and just isn't worth it. I found it a lot more useful back when I didn't know anything about horses. But if you subscribe for a year, you're pretty much going to learn everything they have to offer! I did like Equus for the real life stories (even though most of them made me cry) and the medical information. If I ever subscribe again, it will be to Equus and that's it.
I subscribed to Parenting magazine for a year. It's ok, but again, not much substance. I liked the absence of cigarette and beer ads, though! I was chatting with Kit last night about this, most parent magazines, and parent websites, seem to be full of moms who have no interest in life except raising thier kids. Kinda like old broodmares who were never broke to ride and just pop out a foal every year and don't know anything else! I had a life and things I enjoyed to do before I was a mom, and I'm going to keep doing them, even if finding the time to do them about kills me! So I kinda just don't relate to them very well!

Amber