Millions Quiz: Out of Print Gems

So that you may get to know us better, it’s The Millions Quiz, yet another occasionally appearing series. Here, as conceived of by our contributor Emily, we answer questions about our reading habits and interests, the small details of life the like-minded folks may find illuminating, and we ask you to join us by providing your own answers in the comments or on your own blogs.Today’s Question: New, Used, or Antequarian?Edan: My preference is for new books – to me, reading someone’s yellowed copy of Pride and Prejudice feels too much like wearing that same someone’s stinky sneakers. Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but I can never drum up the same kind of lust for the used as I can for the new. This might have its origins in childhood trips to Children’s Book World in West L.A. where I went to attack L.M. Montgomery’s entire oeuvre, or to get the latest installment of the Babysitter’s Club series. My appreciation for the new became part of my job at Book Soup; there I spent a lot of time stacking smooth hardcovers and shiny paperbacks, and oohing and aahing over what the receiver unpacked next. Even now I can’t help but fix displays at my local bookstore – it’s just too pleasurable to handle all those new novels.For me, buying a new book is an event, and after a day or two of reading, I write my name, and the month and year, on the book’s inside cover. I rarely get rid of the new books I buy; the connection is too deep. I love starting with a stiff and shy paperback, and ending with something dog eared, scribbled on, and creased – in that process, the book becomes read, and becomes mine.Andrew: I know I’ve been in a good used-book shop if, upon leaving, I begin to muse what it would be like to quit my job, buy the shop in question, and become Andrew Saikali, bookseller, Esq. Then reality usually sets in, and I forget this fanciful notion.Second-hand book shops are like an extended version of my den – they are what it would resemble if I had the resources. So, for me, because of the experience of buying used, coupled with the cost-savings, second-hand books trump even the shiniest new books. That said, on occasion I’ll comb the city looking for a just-released title, price be damned. (Bob Dylan’s Chronicles was a case in point.)While I admire antiquarian books – taunting me as they do from their snobby little perch behind the glass, behind lock and key – I’ve always resisted the temptation to splurge. However, if anyone wishes to initiate me into the rarified world behind that glass, my birthday is in April. You’ve missed this year’s, but you can begin to think about next year’s. I also like imported wine and fine chocolate.Kevin: I don’t know if the problem is with me or with used book stores, but either way, the relationship always ends in disappointment. I want to like used book stores, to see them as little pockets of virtue in the miles and miles of new, shiny waste sold by other stores on the block. I want to admire the shy, balding hippy who runs the place, and his quiet young apprentice, who volunteers five hours a week for unlimited free trade-ins. In my first year in every city I’ve ever lived in, I’ve made the rounds of the local used bookstores. Usually my initial trip is also my last. My latest such dalliance was with two places down in Old City Philadelphia. Not wanting to leaving empty handed, I walked out with a frayed history of colonialism in Latin America and a collection of Vonnegut short stories. Both are sitting just where I left them when I came home, in a stack at the foot of my bed. One problem with big chain bookstores, I suppose, is the way they press books upon you, with table displays and prominent shelf placements. It’s hard to discern value that way, too, as hard as it is to determine the same among the undifferentiated clutter of most used book stores. That’s why, all in all, I prefer hand-me-downs from friends, and the library.Emre: I find it hard not to get new, crisp books. There is a certain delight in slowly molding a novel’s spine until the covers bend for a comfortable one-hand-hold read. And, they smell good. That said, I prefer used books when reading not-so-recently published works. I appreciate three qualities in used books: artwork and fonts from a different era, notes by various previous owners (I enjoy the conversation regardless of whether we agree or not) and the randomness that often characterizes how I get them. So far they have – through friends, hole-in-the-wall bookstores or sidewalk vendors – introduced me to Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and The Sirens of Titan, and Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, among others. As for collecting and caring for vintage books, I got nothing. Some sort of book karma seems to be recycling everything that passes through my hands.Emily: Although I love a good rare books room (nothing like the feel of vellum and a little paleographic challenge), I don’t own anything much that’s worth more than the paper it’s printed on. I do own a first edition of Mary McCarthy’s first novel The Company She Keeps, but that wasn’t more than fifty dollars. No, the most expensive book in my collection, coming in at a whopping $92 plus shipping, is (try to contain your jealousy) the out-of-print Life, Letters, and Philosophical Regime of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, edited by Benjamin Rand (1900). It’s a discharged copy from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and falling apart in spite of the fact that quite a few of the pages were uncut when it arrived. This purchase was practical: The Stanford library didn’t have a copy and since I didn’t make it to see the manuscript version of Shaftesbury’s regimen at the National Archives in London, this was the most expedient solution. In general, I’m pretty cheap when it comes to books. My most recent acquisition, for example, was a copy of La Princesse de Cleve (1678) by Madame de Lafayette, considered by some literary historians to be the first European novel. And that was free! (The only treasure in box of books left outside a used bookstore after hours.) Probably my best “find” after a copy of Colley Cibber’s classic (and then, perhaps still, out of print) early eighteenth century play The Careless Husband that I found on the sidewalk in Park Slope.Max: All three types of books speak to me. I blossomed as a reader thanks to used bookstores in Washington, DC and Charlottesville, where the books were cheap and I could easily compile the oeuvre of whoever I was obsessed with at the moment, Vonnegut or John Irving or Hemingway. But I’ve soured a bit on used books because too often used bookstores are hobbies of hoarders and impossible to navigate, or they are too polished and expensive. I will always love, however, the pocket paperbacks of the 50s to the 70s. I love the cover designs across those eras and I love being able to have a book with me, quite literally in my pocket, without having to schlep it awkwardly under my arm.But new books are in most cases better. I find them incredibly tempting with their shiny covers and crisp pages, though, as noted, I do get a bit weary of lugging hardcovers. As for the antiquarian books, I sometimes fancy the idea that it might be fun to be a book collector, but I know I do not have the temperament for it. I cannot see books as objects in that way, and, with the few books of value I have accumulated over the years, I fret about what I am supposed to do with them… sell them? Lock them in a safe? They sit in a box so that they won’t get wrecked. And that’s no place for books to be.So, tell us, in the comments or on your own blog: Used, new, or antiquarian?

So that you may get to know us better, it’s The Millions Quiz, yet another occasionally appearing series. Here, as conceived of by our contributor Emily, we answer questions about our reading habits and interests, the small details of life that like-minded folks may find illuminating, and we ask you to join us by providing your own answers in the comments or on your own blogs.Today’s Question: This one is inspired by a recent item at The Morning News. With print subscriptions becoming increasingly rare for many people, what magazines or newspapers do you still subscribe to in print and why?Garth: I’ve already given this question a fair amount of thought, insofar as my life is an attempt to ride herd over the thousands of pages of print that make their way into my apartment. Over the years, I’ve subscribed to The Believer, The Atlantic, A Public Space, and, during the Lewis Lapham era, Harper’s. (I’ve got my eye on Lapham’s Quarterly, the strikingly dense and beautiful journal the former Harper’s editor now helms.)Through trial and error, I’ve found I can handle about three subscriptions at any given time before the coffee-table magazine offerings start to take a serious toll on my ability to get anything done. The New York Review of Books feels like a keeper, and I need to renew with n+1. But the one I can’t live without is (of course) The New Yorker. John Updike celebrated the magazine as “a heedless river of print” flowing from Manhattan to Shillington, Pennsylvania. For me it’s more like a family. There are favorite aunts, cousins I wish I saw more often, uncles I dread having to talk to. Some encounters are transcendent and some forgettable. Still, I’d never choose not to have a family, and, barring financial disaster, I’d never choose not to receive the print edition of The New Yorker.Ben: Comic books remain the only “magazines” that absolutely must be consumed in their original form. They gain nothing from being digitized. Not only do you lose all of the tactile enjoyment of handling them, the pleasure of going to the store and gabbing with the other comic book nerds, and the vain hope that they might one day pay for your retirement, but they’re actually much more difficult to read online. I tried following Spiderman on the Marvel site for a while, but the computer’s aspect ratio means that either you have to do a lot of scrolling (incredibly irritating) or the artist’s vision becomes compromised. Although it’s certainly possible to make comics work online, in doing so, you create a different art form, something that’s no longer a comic book, but some strange cross between animation and a comic strip. Thanks, but no thanks.Andrew: As a Globe and Mail copy editor, I have easy online access to the paper whenever I want, at my desk, while working, and no one will bat an eye. On Saturdays, however, I like to have my own copy of the weekend Globe. I’ll physically buy it from the newsstand and keep it with me as I stroll around town. Over brunch I’ll do the cryptic crossword and read the front page. Pausing for a coffee, I’ll read the op-ed pages, work my way through the rest of the front section, and start on assorted weekend features. The Saturday Globe is my constant companion. I like spreading it out in front of me in coffee shops. And when I’m done with a section, I’ll leave it behind for someone else to enjoy.The only actual subscription I have is to The Paris Review. It’s a thrill, once a season, to open my mail box and find The Paris Review crammed in there, slightly bent, but all mine. Like the Globe on a Saturday, The Paris Review keeps me company. If I’m in transit, or if I’m waiting for someone or something, I’ll pull it out of my satchel for a quick dose. I usually begin with the Interview, then check out any photographs, then any archival bits, poems, then finally settle into the meat of The Paris Review – the short fiction.Edan: I subscribe to two magazines, The New Yorker and Bon Appétit. These days it’s rare that I get through an entire New Yorker, but I can’t imagine not having that wonderful pile of issues to sift through when I finish a book and I’m not yet ready to start another. I absolutely love cooking magazines, and someday I’ll get subscriptions to all of them – especially Cook’s Illustrated! Until then, Bon Appétit keeps me inspired, and it’s a nice companion to my library of cookbooks and sites like thekitchn.com. It’s also great breakfast reading: you know, hopes for the day, hopes for the stomach.I also subscribe to one or two literary magazines a year, although I don’t always renew when I need to. I’m partial to One Story, and Meridian, where my first short story was published.And, I’ve been known to buy issues of US Weekly from the newsstand down the block (a blessing and curse, that newsstand!) A tabloid is the most delicious bathtub reading after a long day of writing and teaching.Lydia: In seventh grade, I got (or took, as the old folks say) Seventeen Magazine, through a program where you sell wrapping paper to your parents and get magazine subscriptions, or something like that. I thought it was all very racy and exciting until the day I realized that the Trauma-Rama submissions are not real. I have not subscribed to any publication since then, but at Christmas I received a New Yorker subscription, which was one of the best gifts ever. I used to read it online, but it is not the same as lying down on the couch with an adult beverage and one’s feet elevated, sometimes eating chips. Also being of a somewhat limp constitution paper-wise, The New Yorker is easily furled and put into a purse for reading about town. If Anthony Lane had a magazine all his own I would probably subscribe to that too.Emily: I know that signs of the print media apocalypse are everywhere, but I still think that the death knell won’t come for a while yet. This is largely because don’t I think I am alone in finding reading from my computer at my desk unpleasant. I also find reading from my computer not at my desk unpleasant. I like paper – it’s light, you can spill coffee on it or drop in the pool, it doesn’t hurt your eyes or take time to load, there are no pop-up ads, you can fold it up and shove it into a bag, and you don’t have to worry about anyone stealing it. I subscribe to the London Review of Books, n+1, The Economist, and Vogue, and I’ve just subscribed to the New York Review of Books.The Vogue subscription was free, and Vogue – my friend, my enemy – usually makes me angry and a little sad when I read it (Such silly women! Taking themselves so seriously! Such impossible standards of female beauty!), even as I enjoy Steingarten’s food writing and the photography. Inane as fashion is and much as I wish I was immune to its charms (and the charms of the impossible beauty of fashion models), I am, alas, susceptible. This is my guilty and doubtless self-destructive pleasure.The Economist has the best international coverage of any news magazine I’ve encountered. It’s very frank about its politics, and it dissects political and social problems in a tidy (sometimes too tidy) way. It also has a sense of humor. A recent cover bore the title “A Glimmer of Hope?” over this drawing.N+1 is beautifully written, and the quality of thought and feeling that shapes this beautiful writing is not something I’ve seen elsewhere. The care with which its writers examine themselves and culture sometimes borders on the spiritual. I want n+1 to continue to exist.As for the LRB and NYRB, these are the best publications out there devoted exclusively to reviews.Anne: I love getting mail. Mail that must be delivered physically is better than email, because it takes more effort on the sender’s part, for one, and there’s room for personal embellishments and hidden surprises, not to mention that virtual pleasures often pale in comparison to the real thing. There’s pleasant repetition in receiving the mail, too. It’s delivered around same hour most days, and yet you never know what will arrive (especially in New York, where you can never be sure that even what’s expected will come). Like Ann Marlowe who in her memoir How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z tells how heroin addicts measure their days by both copping and doing their H, I divvy time by the arrival of my magazine subscriptions. The weeklies’ (The New Yorker and New York) arrival on Tuesdays marks the official start to the week; and while Harper’s announces the coming of the next month before I’m even thinking about it, The Believer usually punctuates the middle of the four-week run.If magazines are an addiction, it’s one I relish with unadulterated pleasure, and one my doctor isn’t likely to tell me I need to cut back on anytime soon. I try to keep the roll call in check, but I find subscriptions are like intimate relationships – and difficult to end. The last magazine I straight-up dumped was the Atlantic Monthly. When it stopped publishing fiction regularly, our relationship was over. Even though I’ve tried to quit others – on behalf of the bank account and attempts to clear clutter, or during moments of clarity when I realize that to read all of my magazines from cover to cover would leave time for nothing else (including sleep) – it’s a hopeless cause. As soon I let my subscription lapse, they send beckoning discount offers. Just like a haughty ex, The New York Review of Books once included a sticker to decline that said, “No, I don’t like to think.” Next thing I know, I find myself picking up copies that I’ve missed at the newsstand, or gawking at the online table of contents wishing I hadn’t let my subscription lapse.While I could (and do) read much of what’s available online, for free, I usually print out copies of longer stories. I’m far more inclined to surrender to the curatorial authority of the editors when a magazine is in my hands. And not infrequently, I find myself drawn to read articles I may not have jumped to from the TOC. On the internet, my reading is often guided by my own preferences. Still, Cabinet remains the one immutable magazine in my repertoire, that should always be consumed en vivo. In fact, most of the content isn’t available online, so you really don’t have a choice. But even if it were, Cabinet is meant to be collected. As if offering reading pleasures as varied as Shelley Jackson’s riff on the color mauve or an essay on Artaud’s gastronomical obsessions weren’t enough, each issue features eclectic artwork and artists’ projects, with bonus pull-out goodies like postcards, bookmarks (one of the more recent listing Jonathan Ames’s top ten most shameful moments), and, once, a mobile.The magazine arrives in a cardboard envelope, to protect the handsome volume from the hazards of transit. In addition to being the only magazine I’ve ever purchased with a picture of Larry Hagman on its cover, Cabinet is also the only magazine I’ve received by hand delivery, directly from the hands of one of the magazine’s staff, or so I’d like to think. My roommate was the one who answered the door, so I’ll never know who it was except that he wasn’t the postman. Talk about personal service: a paper magazine may be more difficult to distribute than its online counterpart, but it’s also far more enjoyable to receive.Max: The one magazine I’ll always have as long as they put it on paper is The New Yorker. I’ve spent so much time with the magazine over the last decade or so that I’ve become the sort of obsessive that I normally shy away from. But I can’t help it. I notice every minor formatting change, every new byline, and every editorial shift. As much as I love the internet (and have a career that’s powered by it), I could never have this sort of relationship with a publication that I only read online. I’m also a big fan of The Economist – self-assured in its seriousness, never stooping to celebrity journalism to move copies – but, dauntingly thorough as it is each week, I never made much of dent in it. Instead, I’ve recently shifted my subscription to the audio edition, and I their British-accented readers provided an edifying diversion when I go on long drives or run at the gym.I’ve also become a big fan of The Week, the perfect magazine for the internet age. It digests the coverage from hundreds of global newspapers and magazines into an incredibly entertaining and readable package. My favorite section is “Best Columns,” which selects a handful of the best columns and op-eds from newspapers around the world and boils them down to a paragraph or so. It’s a full week of news, expertly curated and smartly presented. Finally, we are weekend subscribers of The New York Times. It’s nice to have an issue or two lying around. But increasingly it seems, we are just in it for the Sunday puzzle.Recently, we’ve also begun polling members of The Millions Facebook Group to get their answers to our Millions Quiz question. Here a few of the responses:Trevor Berrett: I still subscribe to, and can’t see myself giving up, The New Yorker and The Economist. Both are too well written to treat as simple news or as a quick break to read something online. Though both are available online, it’s not the same as being able to go through the print to underline passages for their excellent writing.Tray Davis: New York Review of Books, New Yorker, London Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, The Nation and The Economist. I subscribe because I learn something of interest every time I have time to read any portion of any of them. Cannot imagine reading them online, but don’t have a good reason why not.So, tell us, in the comments or on your own blog: What subscriptions can’t you go without?