As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm a bit of a periodical junkie. There's no way I can make my way cover-to-cover through all of the magazines I subscribe to - at least not if I'm going to do anything else with my life. But there's so many situations when a good magazine or paper comes in handy, when I have a quick chance to read (like an article-length stretch of time), but not enough patience or brain-power to dive back into a book I've started. So I'm always on the look-out for new ones that have some kind of unique coverage of something I'm interested in.

I've recently found two that are definitely worth a mention. A shout-out, as the kids say.

1) Over the holidays, my brother and I were talking about how rarely Canadian current events feature in international news sources. That's a conversation for another day, but it was rolling around in my head during my 8 hour wait at lovely YYZ, so I got curious. Scanning the rack at the newsstand, I picked up a copy of The Walrus, which apparently is quite popular with our friends to the north. But I've never heard of it or seen it here in the States. I have to say it's great, though - a lot like Harper's, but with occasional stories of Canadian interest thrown in. And the international coverage has a slight focus on what would matter most to Canadian foreign relations (an article on the Ring Road in Afghanistan zones in on Canadian casualties and reconstruction efforts in the area). But even in this one issue, there's a fantastic variety of subject matter covered.

2) As a happy subscriber to Harper's, I was intrigued over the course of a few issues by an ad for a new quarterly about to launch, edited by former Harper's editor (and current contributor) Lewis Lapham. I picked up the first issue of (the creatively titled) Lapham's Quarterly a few weeks back, and have slowly been making my way through the dense 220 pages. Definitely one I'll be keeping up with, though. The idea, apparently, is that they'll pick a broad-ranging topic that's been well written about throughout the centuries (the first one is war), and assemble a massive amount of excerpts from famous and not-so-famous authors. The sequence of texts (their ordering), the lavish amount of artwork, and the separation of the excerpts into different thematic sections all makes for great reading - providing interesting parallels, counterpoints and confusions on a complicated topic. I'm excited to see what issue #2 will feature.

So if you're looking for some new regular reading for the New Year, you have my suggestions.