Customer Reviews

The Atlantic

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I love The Atlantic, so I was ecstatic when I saw it on the Kindle list.

Overall, I'm disappointed. All the text is there, but no illustrations, graphics, or charts. One of my favorite sections is Primary Sources, filled with interesting charts and maps. For some reason, NONE of these make it to the Kindle. Nothing but text. I guess it sounds immature to say, "where are all the pictures!?" But I certainly miss them, and the content is not the same without them.

But again, it is nice to have some form of The Atlantic available. I hope the illustrations are eventually included.

Since I don't get the paper edition anymore, I've been wondering how complete the Kindle edition is. I didn't really expect graphics, since most other Kindle periodicals don't have them or leave most of them out, but I was shocked when the latest issue of Atlantic in the Kindle edition had a list of the contents of the Election Special, but not the Special itself. Bummer.

The illustrations are now included in the Kindle edition, and they've stopped cutting the questions out of Goldberg's advice column, so now the Atlantic is really worth the price.

As much as I like the Atlantic, the Kindle version pales in comparison to the physical magazine. There is no reason photos, graphs and other visual elements should be left out.
I also dislike the index, which is just a listing of sections. I would much rather have a link to each individual article and a description of what the article is about. Nowhere is there a brief description of the contents of each article and the titles aren't always descriptive. Clever maybe, but not descriptive. So, I end up reading a paragraph or two before I decide whether or not it's something that I'm interested in reading. Occasionally this means I expose myself to something I might have skipped over, but I would still prefer to have some better cues.
The cost is low for the Kindle edition, but I would rather pay extra for the full experience.

********************EDIT*************************

In the interest of fairness, I've revised this review to reflect the current state of 'The Atlantic Monthly', and saved the original below. As this will make a very long review, I'll try to be brief. Since my initial subscription and review of 'The Atlantic', the magazine has gone through some format changes, nearly all of which seem positive to me. For comparison, I read the last two issues of 2009 from cover to cover, and instead of having to force myself to finish, each kept my interest until the end.

Previously, the initial section of the magazine was called 'The Agenda', and it was a collection of short (sometimes only a few paragraphs) news items, included mostly for their ironic, unusual or surprising values. Also in 'The Agenda' were a few articles of a page or two, but the result was a scattering of unrelated material that haphazardly placed serious journalism next to micro-attention grabbers. The new format replaced 'The Agenda' (which seems like a terrible name anyway) with 'Dispatches' - a half a dozen or so equal length articles that concentrate more on the unusual story-behind-a-story. This is light and requires no heavy lifting yet is also entertaining. A vast improvement.

I didn't notice much change in the features format - usually five investigative journalism pieces - other than the fact that I found them more interesting than before. This could have a lot to do with a concentration on subjects that readers of 'The Atlantic' might expect, and leaving Brittany Spears to 'People'.

Lastly, I thought the changes to the book review section and the 'Cover-to-Cover' column to be huge improvements. Instead of trying to cover too many things at once, they wisely (I feel) decided to go with fewer subjects, but more depth.

I realize two issues does not make a subscription, and I will revisit this magazine again to see if the improvements have held up. I have changed my star rating from 2 to 4 (it may only deserve 3 1/2, but the people responsible for the changes seem to be aware of the problems they were facing and took some decisive action). I'm not so enamored that I'm willing to re-subscribe yet, but they are moving in the right direction. I would definitely recommend 'The Atlantic' for someone who, perhaps waiting for a plane, was looking for something intelligent and entertaining to pass the time.

******************************** END EDIT*****************************


I carried a subscription to The Atlantic for about a year and a half (most of 2007 and 1/2 of '08), until I just couldn't justify the expense anymore. I generally have five or so magazine subscriptions during any given year, and my criteria for renewing is whether or not I consistently read the issues from cover to cover or not. If I find that I'm slogging through the articles, uninspired by the content, then I bid it a hasty farewell.

Because I subscribe to so many magazines, I'm bombarded by offers through the mail for every periodical you can think of, some of which I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. When I first began considering a subscription to The Atlantic, the biggest stumbling block was the price. I think Amazon's price is lower than what I was ever offered, which was thirty-five dollars a year, but since I was aware of the reputation and longevity of the magazine, I decided to make the plunge.

I had no difficulties receiving my issues, which from reading the other reviews sounds like a problem with Amazon, and not The Atlantic, so kudos to their subscription department. When I recieved my first issue, the publisher also sent me a small information packet about the magazine, which I was very surprised to get. It explained how to read the address label on the magazine (something that was new information - to me, at any rate) to keep track of when the subscription ended, and where to find an account number. It also gave directions on how to end my subscription, should I ever find that necessary. Which I did.

One more note about how The Atlantic's subscription dept. works. Your subscription will be automatically renewed when the previous one runs out, and if you purchase the first sub. with a credit card, they'll simply bill you and you won't miss an issue. I understand why a business might want to operate this way, but as a consumer, I'm not a big fan of this practice. If I don't want the product anymore, I don't like the onus being on me to stop being billed for it. I'd much rather just let the whole relationship die a quiet, peaceful death.

That's the technical details, none of which affected my decision to end my subscription. That decision was based on the magazine's content and editorial direction.

Right away, I noticed I was having a difficult time finishing the magazine. At first, I accepted that the problem was probably me - I needed to get more comfortable with the magazine's format and recurring contributors. As I said, I subscribe to several different magazines during any given year, and usually there are one or two general interest, a literary journal, and some woodworking journals. The problem I had with The Atlantic was that each subject they covered - whether it concerned Torture in Iraq, Terrorists in the Phillipines, or The American Idea - each seemed to offer no new insights and which I frankly found to be boring. Their recurring features section, which included reviews of upcoming books, film, etc, seemed rushed and incomplete. I'd much rather read the full review on 1 book that intrigues me enough to buy or check it out than a sentence about 100 books that tell me nothing more than the bought and paid for blurb on the back cover. The magazine did approach each subject from a more centrist view than some of the other current event magazines (like Harper's liberal agenda, which I don't always agree with but I find infinitely more entertaining), but perhaps they needed a firm stance on something - it seemed as though everything went through a bland meter before publication to test out it's blah factor.

Additionally, I am an avid letter column reader. I like to hear responsible critiques and viewpoints to articles I've recently read. But I noticed a strange and what I thought was a cowardly trend in The Atlantic's letter pages: after almost every critical letter, the original auther responded, defending his article. Occasionally this can be interesting, but when it happens after almost every letter, I begin to think that if the authors have to explain this much, then they didn't do a very good job of it the first time around. Cumulatively, it had the effect of making the contributors sound defensive and whiny.

There are two issues in particular that eventually made me drop my subscription. The Atlantic began celebrating their 150th anniversary during my year and a half with them, which culminated in a double-sized 'American Idea' issue. It gathered an impressive number of thinkers and writers who were asked to submit a short essay on what they believed 'The American Idea' was. These essays ranged in size, but most were limited to a paragraph or two. I don't understand how anyone could think this exercise was worth the printing cost. I couldn't even get through it. Anything that may have been worthwhile would have been buried in the dross of gum flapping. And anything worthwhile would surely be worth more than two paragraphs.

The issue that finally put the nail on the coffin though was the Brittany Spears issue. I went to my mailbox and pulled out what looked like a People magazine, with a picture of Ms. Spears in dark glasses and obviously wanting to be left alone except some idiot was jumping in front of her flashing a camera. I was embarrassed that my postman had to deliver it. To be fair, I read the article, which concerned itself about the paparazzi that follow Ms. Spears around and generally make her life hell. Too bad for her. Since I consider paparazzi and entertainment magazines to be one of the rotting boils on the backside of this 'American Idea', I called up The Atantic's subscription department (with the handy number that came with the info package at the beginning) and cancelled.

If you like Ms. Spears, then there are plenty of outlets to get your fill of her. Personnally, I'd like to know how to purge my mind of this incessent celebrity culture injected into society's stream of consciousness anyway, but until they find a way to do that, I certainly don't want to be reminded of it any more than I have to. Especially from a magazine that ought to be focused on events more important than the plight of paparazzi. Poor little fellers.

Truth be told, I was expecting the hardsell when I called to cancel the subscription, but the operator was very succinct, and asked no questions and did not try to dissuade me. I don't know if she was getting used to those calls by then or not. Probably not. The bar for current events and important news items in this country is lowered every day - but in my version of the 'American Idea', there wouldn't be venerable institutions such as The Atlantic taking part.

Try this magazine one issue at a time. Perhaps someday it will find its direction again and steer by the light it has lit in the past. For now, though, I think it is adrift at sea, looking for something solid on which to ground itself.

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 and it delivers most effectively 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.
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 those found in most other magazines is that the featured articles are often very long- sometimes exceeding 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 present a fair and balanced perspective, 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. I like reading the reviews, but I like this section best 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.

I am a former print subscriber and frequent newstand purchaser of The Atlantic, which I have been reading for around 20 years. I've just set up a trial subscription to the Kindle version of the magazine. The January 2011 issue was instantly delivered to my Kindle last night, and appears to be improved over the content others have commented on here. There are some photos and illustrations, and also a "Letters to the Editor" section. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison of the January Kindle and print versions to see what may be missing from the Kindle, but for $1.99 the Kindle version is pretty convenient.

That said, I like to have hard copy reading material I can access between push-back and 10,000' while flying (this can be an hour at a busy airport) and that is also less fragile for reading on a windy/sandy beach or in the bathtub. And I like full the color charts, graphs, and maps the paper version of The Atlantic uses to illustrate its stories, plus Guy Billout's cartoons. So I'm not convinced I'll be a full time Kindle subscriber from here on in, but for the cost of a 12 oz Americano, it is nice to have one of my favorite magazines appear on my Kindle like clockwork each month. I am giving Atlantic the score I think it deserves based on the quality of its journalism and other writing (do I get the annual fiction issue or is that a separate deal?) for the measly $2/month cost.

Yep I miss the color pictures but it's still the Atlantic and with the Kindle version I tend to read every article.

I began subscribing to the Atlantic around the time of start of the war in Afghanistan, and was an ardent fan. I loved the reporting by James Fallows and Mark Bowden, Mark Steyn's obits, and Christopher Hitchens' erratic but occasionally terrific stuff. It was literary, combative, intelligent, centrist but never doctrinaire. But after a few years I noticed a worrying development. Stories kept cropping up that I suppose were meant to attract a young female readership. They were about boring subjects like healthcare and organic food. There was an editorial slant that was indistinguishable from the NYT or Slate. They ran a cover story about the shortage of good nannies and later an adulatory profile of Barack Obama. Steyn disappeared. The month I cancelled my subscription, Britney Spears was on the cover. I read later that the magazine was taken over by a new publisher around the time it went bad, and it had a callow young editor who was on a drive to raise circulation. Rather than screwing up the content of the magazine, they should have fixed their subscription department. At one stage I had four subscriptions going-- 3 of them gifts to friends, because I was such a fan. When I started a subscription or changed my address, it would take 5 or 6 months for the changes to be carried out. Even responding to my enquiries took weeks. -- A young female reader.

The Atlantic Monthly was founded primarily as a "literary and culture commentary magazine" for and by local authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., John Greenleaf Whitter, and James Russell Lowell back in 1857. On February 1, 1862, The Atlantic Monthly was the first to publish Julia Ward Howe's BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. Until recently the magazine was known mainly as a "New England literary magazine". The Atlantic too has shrugged off its roots, no longer publishing much fiction beyond a summer special. Things have greatly changed between 1857 and 2009.


I started reading The Atlantic Monthly, or The Atlantic, as they now call it, back in 1963 while serving in the military. Read it all the way through college into the 70s and 80s, etc. While I go back to Elizabeth Drew, Ward Just, James Fallows, Edward Weeks, and who can forget Phoebe Lou Adams, among others, I find today's magazine worthwhile if for no other reason than the book reviews and writer profiles that frequently occur.

As with most magazines of today, The Atlantic Monthly is no better, no worse than most, though much less than it was once. Though it is more colorful than in prior years, it still has a lack luster to it. And the logo, The Atlantic, now in use while new to many readers, is the way the logo appeared back in the 1940s and 1950s. Sometimes I think the high money-bright idea people at the magazine are too clever for their shirts, I mean positions. I really mark The Atlantic's decline from the mid-1970s, various and sundry ailments from which it has never bounced back.

I assume the magazine has changed hands at least once, no longer coming from Boston but from Washington, D.C. I think The Atlantic's guidelines and direction have changed too through the years and doesn't always succeed. Undecided whether to be a literary magazine, a political magazine, a "People" knockoff, or a combination of all. However, as many reviews listed here indicate, The Atlantic doesn't always succeed nor please its subscribers.

But for the occasional 'good' feature and the book/author information offered I will stick with them. And as with many monthlies, they are now reduced down to 10 issues a year rather than 12. You receive 2 combined issues plus 8 others, that too seems the contemporary trend (helps with summer vacations and winter holidays). I prefer The Economist to most other magazines but the cost is far too prohibitive at $127.00 per year. So The Atlantic is my next choice, good or not so good.

Semper Fi.