As the
number of newspaper titles shrinks, the number of weekly, monthly and even
quarterly journals seems to increase. It’s 3 years
since I last tried to identify quality journals which might be of interest
to my readers – so today I will update that.
Academic journals
I started
that earlier post by posing the following question - which (English
language) journals would pass a test which included such criteria as
–
- Depth of treatment
- Breadth of coverage (not just
political)
- Cosmopolitan in taste (not just
anglo-saxon)
- clarity of writing
- sceptical in tone
That’s a tough test – but my new list
has quite a few new titles for your consideration…..
3 Quarks Daily; my daily fix - an amazing site which offers carefully chosen articles which suit my demanding taste perfectly
Aeon; an impressive
cultural journal (online since 2012) whose articles are about big issues and have
real “zing”
Arts
and Letters Daily; the last list missed this great daily internet service
which highlights an article and book – even although it’s long been essential
viewing for me
Book
Forum; has gone downhill – used to offer an amazing daily service
which gave links from mainly US academic journals…..
Boston Review; a new mag which
I rate very highly for originality
Brain
Pickings; a superb personal endeavour from a Bulgarian woman now living in
the States which, every week, gives extended excerpts from classic texts about
creativity etc. Recently, however, I’ve found it a bit too predictable
Current
affairs; a fairly new bi-monthly and slightly anarchistic American mag
Dissent; a US leftist stalwart
Dublin Review of
Books; great crack
Eurozine;
a network of some 90 European cultural mags which gives a great sense of the
diversity of European writing
Jacobin; a new
leftist E-mag with a poor literary style. Indeed, with its large print, different
coloured paper and photos, it’s more like a comic!
Lettre International; a
fascinating quarterly published in German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian and Romanian.
Literary Hub; a great literary
site with daily selections and frequent posts
London Review of Books; my favourite for the past 40 years to which I generally subscribe
London Review of Books; my favourite for the past 40 years to which I generally subscribe
Los Angeles
Review of Books; relatively new and trying too hard to run with
the politically correct
Monthly Review; an old US
stalwart with good solid analysis
Mother Jones; more
journalistic US progressive
N+1; a centrist
mag published only 3 times a year
New Humanist; an important
monthly strand of UK thought
New Left
Review; THE UK leftist journal - running on a quarterly basis since 1960.
Always worth a look
Prospect (UK);
rather too smooth centrist UK monthly
Public Books – an
impressive recent website (2012) to encourage open intellectual debate
Quillette; a
"free-thinking" contrarian and libertarian journal
Resurgence
and Ecologist; dependable UK Green mag
Sceptic; celebration
of important strand of UK scepticism
Scottish
Review; a fantastic weekly with humanistic takes on what’s happening
Social Europe; a european social democratic
E-journal whose short articles are a bit too predictable for my taste
Soundings; if you want to keep
up with UK leftist thought, this is the journal for you – issued only 3 times a
year
Spiked; a libertarian net-based
journal with challenging articles always guaranteed to be anti-PC
Sydney
Review of Books; still can’t make up my mind
The Alternative UK; an excellent new platform aimed at establishing a "friendly revolution" to transform politics - it actually gives space to interesting new thinkers
The
Atlantic; one of the US oldest mags (founded in 1857)
The Baffler; great
writing. Apparently founded in 1988, it surfaced for me only recently
The
Conversation; a rare venture which uses academics as journalists
The Nation; America's
oldest (1865) weekly, for the "progressive" community
The New Republic;
Progressive US monthly which has been publishing for more than a century
The New Yorker; very
impressive US writing
The New York
Review of Books; simply can’t do without it
The Point; a quiet mag to which I’ve taken out a trial
sub
Washington Independent Review; a new
website borne of the frustration about the disappearance of so many book review
columns
Words
without Borders; a journal of translation which I’m experimenting
with
Academic journals
I would not normally deign academic
journals with a second glance since theirs is an incestuous breed – with arcane
language and specialized focus which breaches at least two of the above five
tests. But Political Quarterly stands
apart with the superbly written (social democratic) analyses which have been
briefing us for almost a century and to which I have recommenced an (internet)
sub.
Parliamentary Affairs; West European Politics and Governance run it
close with more global coverage.
My own regular favourite reading includes The Guardian Long Reads and book reviews, London
Review of Books and the New York Review of
Books – and the occasional glance at the New Left Review and New Statesman.
This choice betrays a certain
“patrician” position – partial but not too “tribal
A concept with unrealized potential, I feel, is
that of the “global roundup” ” with selections of representative writing
from around the globe. Courrier international is a
good, physical, Francophone example – the others being “virtual” or E-journals
eg Arts and Letters Daily a good
literary, anglo-saxon exemplar; with Eurozine taking
the main award for its selection of the most interesting articles from Europe’s
90 cultural journals
I found this
list of previous posts about journalists when drafting this piece -
The archive on journalism
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