The Atlantic Magazine Stimulates with Thoughtful, Intellectual Articles

If you’re the type who likes reading about current events, social trends, and public policy than one magazine you will likely enjoy is The Atlantic, a magazine that offers thought- provoking articles on the important issues of the day. Let’s take a look at what this magazine offers:

Basic Contents of This Magazine:

The Atlantic contains between 120 and 160 pages per issue with the following main sections:

The Agenda- This section of The Atlantic talks about current events and social issues.

Poetry- Here, The Atlantic offers some poems from different writers. These appear in different places in the magazine.

The Critics- Book reviews, travel, food, culture, commerce, and other topics are up for scrutiny in this section.

Other- These are other departments, like Letters to the Editor.

Each issue of The Atlantic also offers several different featured articles. These articles are quite lengthy and they cover both international and domestic topics.

Magazine Web Page/Pricing:

The web site for The Atlantic Magazine is theatlantic.com. This magazine carries a base price that is pretty expensive- close to three dollars per issue, and that works out to almost thirty dollars per year (10 issues per year). But the internet makes it easy to find better deals. With minimal research, I have found the Atlantic selling for thirty to fifty percent off.

Final Thoughts:

The Atlantic is an intellectual magazine and one that I have been reading on and off for many years. This magazine is best known for its political/current events/social articles that tackle some tough issues of the day, often from a different perspective than found in most other publications.

As most people know, I like reading and talking politics so it makes sense that The Atlantic is part of my monthly reading routine. I used to grab an issue here and there while sitting in waiting rooms or while walking through a book store, provided that the cover story caught my attention. Now, I have a subscription to The Atlantic and I rank it among my favorite magazines.

The Atlantic is best when it’s offering some commentary on world events and social issues and these are the articles I turn to first when I read The Atlantic. I like the political articles best, but there are plenty of other non- political yet very thoughtful articles in each issue. For example, the latest issue has an article about the internet and how it has directly impacted the way we think. Another article in the same issue talks about the impact of electric cars. In past issues, there have been articles about race relations, immigration, prayer in schools, and other topics on the political side; with non- political articles on topics like space travel, medicine, and higher education.

Most every article in The Atlantic is thoughtful and well- written. Look closely at the authors of some of the stories in this magazine and you will notice some high- profile names on more than one occasion. Christopher Hitchens, Mark Bowden, Eric Schlosser, and others are known to contribute an article or two in each issue of The Atlantic. These writers, and others like them, are ready to offer their take on some of the critical issues of the day.

The Atlantic certainly offers some interesting, thoughtful, intellectual articles and one fact that sets them apart from the articles in most other magazines is that the featured articles are often very long- often more than ten pages in length. Most magazines shy away from articles this long because they know that most reader’s have an attention span that is far too short to finish the entire piece of reading in one sitting. But The Atlantic is different. If the subject matter is such that an article needs to be ten- plus pages in order to thoroughly cover everything, then The Atlantic is quick to oblige. I appreciate the excellent coverage but I must admit that some articles are almost too long. Even when I have an interest in the subject matter, I often end up stopping halfway through because I cannot hold my attention any longer.

Another section I like in The Atlantic is the book reviews section. To be fair, The Atlantic reviews new books from many different genres and I like that there are different reviews of varying lengths. One section of The Atlantic called “Cover to Cover” includes short summaries of many different books. These are nice when you don’t have time to read a lengthy review of a book and just want the basics. But there are also some very long book reviews in The Atlantic, along with some advertisements for new books that include a short, 50 to 100 word summary of the book. More than actually reading these reviews, I like the book section for its exposure to new book releases. It is like looking at a quick rundown of intellectual books and I have, in fact, discovered some very good titles from this part of the magazine.

Overall, The Atlantic ranks among my favorite magazines and I look forward to some serious, intellectual reading in each issue. I admit that some articles are a tad too lengthy, but I still like The Atlantic for its intellectual stimulation and for its focus on current events. It’s a very good magazine for cerebral types who like to read about politics and social issues.