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The London Review of Books marked 20 years of increased circulation in 2020, and has grown by 13% since then. I think it would be of interest to some people her

The London Review of Books marked 20 years of increased circulation in 2020, and has grown by 13% since then. I think it would be of interest to some people here and I highly recommend buying a subscription: https://www.lrb.co.uk/ https://www.lrb.co.uk/.

Emma_Goldman 5y ago
It's worth pointing out that the LRB was also subsidised by the money its editor inherited, Mary-Kay Williams, for most of its history. But it's certainly flourishing today, to the point that it releases articles faster than anyone can possibly keep up with. I keep track of a lot of magazines and journals like the LRB, and many of them are in a similar upswing. But none of them are purely literary, and indeed, the LRB probably best described as a journal of ideas - of history, geopolitics, politics, economics, and so on. Literature has an important be delimited place. In a way I'm not sure there's a decline as much as a consolidation, where a dozen or so major outlets reach a level of prominence that everyone wants to write for them, and a scale such that they can diversify across subjects to suit most tastes. While I know many people interested in the LRB, I know few if any interested in purely literary magazines - which can often be niche and inward looking.
- martingoodson 5y ago
  I completely agree. Literature is just one of the thing it writes about. I really like its boldness. I love the fact that they turned over an entire issue to telling the stories of those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 (the UK's most lethal residential fire since WWII). They decided to publish 60,000 words on the fire, replacing all of their usual format. That's the length of a short novel [1]. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n11/andrew-o-hagan/the-tower https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n11/andrew-o-hagan/the-t...
rsync 5y ago
Yes, please do subscribe to the LRB - it is my favorite periodical and I can't wait for it to arrive every two-ish weeks ... FWIW, you can buy a subscription on Amazon ...

Emma_Goldman 5y ago

It's worth pointing out that the LRB was also subsidised by the money its editor inherited, Mary-Kay Williams, for most of its history. But it's certainly flourishing today, to the point that it releases articles faster than anyone can possibly keep up with. I keep track of a lot of magazines and journals like the LRB, and many of them are in a similar upswing. But none of them are purely literary, and indeed, the LRB probably best described as a journal of ideas - of history, geopolitics, politics, economics, and so on. Literature has an important be delimited place. In a way I'm not sure there's a decline as much as a consolidation, where a dozen or so major outlets reach a level of prominence that everyone wants to write for them, and a scale such that they can diversify across subjects to suit most tastes. While I know many people interested in the LRB, I know few if any interested in purely literary magazines - which can often be niche and inward looking.

martingoodson 5y ago
I completely agree. Literature is just one of the thing it writes about. I really like its boldness. I love the fact that they turned over an entire issue to telling the stories of those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 (the UK's most lethal residential fire since WWII). They decided to publish 60,000 words on the fire, replacing all of their usual format. That's the length of a short novel [1]. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n11/andrew-o-hagan/the-tower https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n11/andrew-o-hagan/the-t...

rsync 5y ago

Yes, please do subscribe to the LRB - it is my favorite periodical and I can't wait for it to arrive every two-ish weeks ... FWIW, you can buy a subscription on Amazon ...