The New Yorker

Here's my weekly plug for Day to Read. This week it's all about The New Yorker magazine. Oh how I love it.

I grew up "reading" this magazine - mostly the cartoons when I was younger. They have by far the greatest cartoon collection of any magazine. Perhaps the only one. Legendary. They were my funny pages (seeing as the NY Times didn't have comics). My Dad had a few of Peter Arno's cartoons on the wall in his office. When Dad retired he gave the cartoons to partners in his practice. It's the one item in his office I was truly sorry to see go.

In DC, the #42 bus is also known as the New Yorker bus. Every morning as it wound its way through Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, and Dupont Circle, you could see all sorts of people reading their latest issues - I always knew when mine had arrived late just by looking at the cover of other people's magazines.

One thing I remember very distinctly about first meeting my husband is that he had a subscription - as did I. When we married, we merged our accounts and now we have to share. Good thing he's better about sharing the New Yorker than he is about sharing the NY Times.

My favorite writers are David Sedaris for his acerbic wit and Seymour Hersh for his unrelenting criticism of this administration. On occasion there is also Atul Gawande with medical conundrums and Malcolm Gladwell on sociological phenomena.

The covers are equally legendary - sometimes a quaint comment on reading or weather and sometimes a strong criticism on our world leaders. Always a painting or drawing - never a photograph or list of contents. Truly, a work of art.

Many people look to the groundhog as the harbinger of spring. I look for Eustace Tilly on the cover of the New Yorker - the guy in the top hat with the monocle. Then I know, it's only six more weeks of winter.