Magazines

I guess one reason I read so many books as a child was because I didn't have so many great magazines as I have now. I had subscriptions, first to American Girl, then Seventeen. But now, every month, I generally read Smithsonian, National Geographic, Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Wired. And that's not mentioning the New York Times and Washington Post weekly Sunday magazines. And not even starting with Salon.com, or the recently discovered (by me) online version of The New Yorker. It is a wonder that I ever read a book.

But I don't know how much the magazines are a cause and how much they are a symptom. My increasing attention to the internet and multitasking as a way of life seems to have decreased my tolerance for sitting still, focusing on a single narrative for long periods of time. I have recently found it more difficult to read books because I am impatient to get on with the next activity, whatever it might be. I kind of hope this is just a phase I'm going through.