I went through a big stack of magazines a few weeks ago. I made what is usually a mistake: glanced through the tables of contents of each one before putting it in recycling. I wound up keeping a (much smaller) pile of issues containing stories I'd overlooked or never got around to the first time but which still looked interesting. Normally when I do that, THOSE sit around forever unread. But this time, I opened the magazines to the interesting articles and stacked them that way, opened, on my bedside table. Now, whenever I'm near them with time to read, I grab one of those. I've been reading stuff from as far back as July that I might have missed but am glad I found. Then when I've finished the good pieces, I throw the magazine into the recycling bag.
For example, there was a Nick Paumgarten piece on internet dating, and one by I can't remember who on Han Han, the Chinese superstar novelist. A short essay by Nora Ephron about "almost" becoming an heiress -- great ending, BTW. Something by Malcolm Gladwell, which is weird -- I usually make a point to read Gladwell's pieces (along with David Sedaris, George Saunders and a few others) right when they come out.
And I just finished a fascinating piece -- this is actually from as recently as October -- by Philip Gourevitch about how humanitarian aid, counterintuitively, can actually increase atrocities, how although we all naturally consider those good deeds beyond blame or reproach they actually can wind up aiding genocidaires and dragging out atrocity-filled conflicts -- an outcome predicted, fascinatingly, by Florence Nightingale.
Topic: In the New Yorker... (Read 2358037 times)