.Bard

In case no one's noticed, I'm turning into a Harper's junkie. At the behest of my boy Nabsy I began looking for a regular periodical a while back, and didn't really get much further than their website. Lately, they've become pretty important to me, as in my quest to spend less to provide money to pump into the house pre-sale, I've even stopped buying new books. It's nice to have a source for fresh food for the mind.

Besides having some really great -- as in, insightful, left-biased, intelligent -- content, Harper's also has a long history of the same. They've been around since 1850, making them the second oldest continually published magazine in the US (if Wikipedia is to be believed). The thing that really got me, and still does get me, about the magazine is the access they give subscribers to their archives. Having been not only around for so long, but having been respected by so many great writers for long gives their archives the air of a great library of American lit and opinion. Only the other day, I read an article written by Mark Twain. The very idea of reading "new" -- well, to me anyway -- content from one of the all-time great novelists that our country has produced still staggers me, and I know I've barely scratched the surface, having only been a subscriber for a couple of months.

So, allow me to be your Harper's pusher; $US16.95/yr gets you a full subscription, including unfettered access to their full online archives (it was $AU30-odd/yr, delivered to my door.. Bargain!). I can't think of a single reason everyone shouldn't subscribe.