Lydia Likes It

Magazines with benefits

Remember when magazines were printed on paper, and delivered by the post office every week or every month? If you were like me, you read some of them right away (New York Magazine, Seventeen, Mad), and others, like The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and cooking magazines, piled up for a month or more until I had time to settle in with them. These days we still get The New Yorker in print every week, because my husband Ted makes art out of the covers, but I read the magazine with my digital subscription. Same with The Atlantic. And both of those digital subscriptions come with benefits -- special interest newsletters, at no additional charge, so I'm sure to see content that most interests me.

Every Thursday, Arthur C. Brooks sets his sights, and his mighty pen, on making us happy. Not in a haha entertaining way, but in a way that helps us think our way to the life we want. He tackles the big questions of meaning and happiness in his column, How to Build a Life, in The Atlantic. Recent columns discussed how to have your most fulfilling vacation ever, the happy art of grandparenting, the narrow-but-easy path to happiness, and the happiest way to change jobs. You'll need to sign up for a digital subscription ($79.99) to The Atlantic to get this newsletter delivered to your mailbox every week, but that digital subscription will get you more than just How to Build a Life, which you can order in newsletter format. Of course you'll be able to access every article in the magazine. You can also subscribe to their other wonderful newsletters, like The Weekly Planet (climate) and The Books Briefing (new and interesting books), plus daily or weekly news updates.

A digital subscription to The New Yorker drops a newsletter called The Food Scene in my inbox every week, along with The Borowitz Report and a weekly news and politics review, plus access to all the content of the magazine, and daily crosswords during the week. Digital-only subscription: $59.99 for the first year. Worth every penny.

Heather Cox Richardson, historian

"What's past is prologue," Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, and how right he was. By reading and learning about our history, we begin to understand why today is happening. Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of American history at Boston College, writes her daily Letters from an American to set the events of the day in context and connect the dots between past and present. It's my first read every morning, before I tackle the newspapers. Subscriptions are free, and if you want more, she also has a weekly podcast, Now and Then, on Tuesdays.

Reasons to be Cheerful

If, like me, you're a bit down in the dumps about the state of our world these days, here's an antidote to despair. Pay a visit to Reasons to be Cheerful, a site founded by Scottish-Canadian artist and musician David Byrne, lead singer of the band Talking Heads. Under the banner of Byrne’s non-profit organization, Arbutus, Reasons to be Cheerful aims to inspire us all to be curious about how the world can be better, and to ask ourselves how we can be part of that change. By lifting up small stories of hope rooted in evidence -- Did you know the Austrian government subsidizes small businesses to repair broken stuff like electronics, bicycles, furniture and clothes? How environmentally cool is that? -- Reasons to be Cheerful addresses the big topics (civic engagement, climate, economy, education, health, justice, science) by focusing on the small actions that are making a difference at home and around the world. Every post makes me think. Every post makes me smile.

Teen Vogue

Today's most insightful and aggressive political reporting isn't the exclusive domain of The New York Times, or The Washington Post, or NPR or MSNBC. You'll find topnotch political coverage in Teen Vogue, a magazine that feeds a girls-under-21 demographic with a steady diet of fashion, beauty and entertainment content, but that also takes on huge issues like feminism, immigration, racism, and activism. Subscriptions are just $5 for one year ($10 for two years), and if there's no one in your life who would enjoy Teen Vogue, why not ask your local public library, shelter, or afterschool program if they would like a subscription as a gift? You can follow Teen Vogue on Twitter, too. Honest, courageous journalism should be rewarded. 

Humans of New York

Have you fallen in love with Humans of New York? I'm in love with this blog, not only because I'm from New York, but also because it's an amazing snapshot of a place in time and the people who inhabit that place. In 2010, newly-unemployed Brandon began photographing New Yorkers, with the idea of plotting their photos on a map to create a portrait of the city. Somewhere along the way, the project became something more, and Brandon began to add quotes and stories to the photographs. Humans of New York captures people as they are: remarkable, each in his or her own way. There's a New York Times bestselling book from the blog, too.