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Dear Kay,

I use New Yorkers to carbon-date the piles of crap in my house. A copy of The New Yorker, folded open to a half-read article and stashed below a bedside table, is one of the great emblems of optimism.

I know, I know: everybody loves The New Yorker, yet nobody in history has successfully read an issue cover to cover during the week that it is current.

Good news: It’s now possible to get a big ol’ dose of all the news and culture and whatnot in an easy-to-knit-to form, The New Yorker Radio Hour.

Spoiler alert: it’s not only a radio hour (from WNYC). It’s a streaming-on-your-gizmo hour. It’s a podcast. It’s a bunch of short interviews, usually, so you can snack on it as you like.

Have a peek at all the episodes here.

Hosting all the chitchat is the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who really does have the gift of gab. Which isn’t always the case with editors.

The latest episode, where Remnick shows his love of music, includes an interview with Jonelle Monáe, the singer whose ever-morphing style and dazzling voice are mesmerizing.

Love,

Ann

15 Comments

  • I’m reading my issues from the past 6 months on my riding trip to Myrtle Beach over the Thanksgiving weekend, but I will check out the podcast this weekend.

  • I.too, am behind with a (short) stack of New Yorkers to catch up on. Thanks for the recommendation of the podcast.

  • I relay on podcasts for when I walk my dogs and of course knit. I was getting burned out on the political podcasts. I hope this one will be a welcome relief. Thanks for the suggestion.

  • I have three New Yorkers (from 1978!) still folded open to a loooong article that I had planned to read while I was pregnant……..this child will turn 40 in April! I’m ever both the procrastinator and the optimist! My husband says that he HAS read one complete New Yorker during the current week of its publication….but then he reads A LOT (unlike me)!
    I cannot imagine life without the New Yorker!

  • I deliberately read The New Yorker one year behind. So much more restful that way. Alas, I have not perfected the ability to knit while reading The New Yorker, since I still get it in paper form.

  • This is the truth of all truths: nobody in history has successfully read an issue cover to cover during the week that it is current. I probably would have (regretfully) ended my subscription years ago, but my brother keeps renewing it. Gotta love that guy. When we receive it, I page through, looking at all the cartoons and noting which articles I’ll go back to later. Nope. All the nopes in nopesville. (However, I did once read the entirety of an article about prehistoric sandals, which I found fascinating.) Now some friends up the street have cancelled their subscription, so I finally have a place to put those folded-open, never-read issues besides the recycling.

  • The New Yorker is a treasure, but I long ago decided that it is not necessary to even have the ambition of reading it cover to cover. I declare freedom for all! I pick and choose, and that’s it.
    Roz Chast, that’s another story . . .

    The iPad app, free with paper subscription, is handy, BTW.
    I love the podcast too.

  • Hi, Ladies & Laddies; shall we talk about slipping the first stitch ‘wrong’? LOL!! And, how about slipping the last stich…..knit wise? Oh, yeah…..I’d write more, but I’ve had a glass of cream sherry……no, I don’t drink and knit/crochet; LOL!!

  • There is no Editor like David Remnick! His ability to write and really SAY something is a gift — you’re right. You’re also right that reading a whole issue means that one must be a speed reader + …..But, The New Yorker is worth trying.

  • Thank you. I didn’t know about this and I love it. I’m listening now to “From Mexico, the Reality of the Migrant Caravan”. I love having this to knit to.

  • I save my unread issues for subway rides, whatever the city. They are lightweight, fit in my large purse and I never run out of reading material (plus, it’s so chic to read the New Yorker in the Paris metro). Their fiction podcast is sensational too. Then again podcasts are accumulating in my feed about as fast as issues of the New Yorker magazine…

  • Adding this to my Stitcher podcast playlist. Thanks so much for the recommend.

  • “yet nobody in history has successfully read an issue cover to cover during the week that it is current”
    I can honestly say there was a period of time in my life when I was able to go through an issue in a week. I had a long commute on public transportation. Week after week, month after month. It became obvious right away that I had time to read all the little notices about the arts too. I learned so much! For those issues that spanned two weeks I ended up not having not enough NYer to read and brought a book along .

  • blahahahah

    Carbon dating via folded New Yorkers! This is my house!
    I do love the New Yorker fiction, author’s voice and poetry podcasts!

  • I must say that the show that airs on Saturday morning on WNYC has gotten better… Remnick needed time to ‘get a groove’ and not seem elitist. And I say this as a long time (35 year) subscriber. But it has been fun to ‘hear’ the subjects speak and to have audio content that you can’t get in a printed article. (and now that I have a Kindle, I am not always reading my NYer on the subway …)

    Bonus — you can subscribe to a daily NYer newsletter, which links to articles (10 free per month) but also has good daily reporting on the issues of the day. Excellent content. Good reporting. Highly recommend.

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