50 Pages a Week

Rarely if ever do I use this space to endorse a product or service. There's plenty of that out there already. But I found a magazine a few months ago that is the best example I've ever seen of brevity and an international perspective that one rarely sees in the domestic media. It's called The Week, which calls itself The Best of the U.S. and International Media. And it is. Each issue begins with a look at how the main stories of the week were covered both domestically and internationally, a combination that often serves to show how differently we see the same stories. There's also the Controversy of the Week. The world at a glance gives us short snippets of interesting stories from other countries, few of which you probably saw in domestic newspapers. Never too highbrow, each issue has a page featuring gossip from your favorite tabloid, but there are also pages devoted to the best national and international columns, political cartoons, arts, music, stage, cinema, travel and business. A two-page essay called The Last Word is consistently interesting, and the final page gives you the highlights of the coming week on television. If it all sounds a bit cluttered, it is, although it is compartmentalized in an easy-to-read format.

And, most importantly, it is absolutely addictive. A recent issue featured the various ways the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was viewed in various U.S. cities, a question-and-answer page on the search for a humane form of execution, short articles on bloggers and Ann Coulter, and a last word on the overnight world of UPS.

I can't get enough of this magazine. Try it (no, I'm not getting any residuals for this), and see if you don't learn a ton of new things in each and every issue.