American Gunsmith (1-year auto-renewal)

This magazine is an excellent ref tool, for those who are in the fire arms industry. This is a must have for all people who deal in weapons, weapons repair, and weapons manufacturing.

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Arizona Highways Magazine (1-year auto-renewal)

I have only been to Arizona one time, but this magazine takes me back there and makes me long for a return trip. Every month when I receive an issue, I am able to relax in its beauty, for this magazine has some of the most astonishing photographs of any magazine I have ever read.

But it's not just the photos that make this a good buy. Stories of local natives and their history, wonders of geology, hiking excursions and even a few pages of humor make for a well-rounded and enjoyable magazine.

A good purchase for anyone wanting to learn more about, or longing to return to, Arizona.

I read much on southwestern history and quite an amount of that history happened in and around Arizona Territory and since 1912, the state of Arizona. Much of the 19th century Indian Wars, with U.S. cavalry and Apache clashing with each other, centered in Arizona too. So, from my readings in Arizona Highways, I had planned to retire in Arizona, but things turned out differently. Though I now live retired in Virginia, I continue to receive Arizona Highways every single month and would not wish to be without it.

Though the magazine has experienced several editorial changes of late, the magazine still continues to be very readable. In addition the yearly calendars published by Arizona Highways are a high point for me too. For years I had bought only a monthly calendar, but have recently started getting the day-by-day desk calendar as well. Very useful and very practical.

The letters column each month shows few if any that do not appreciate Arizona Highways, and this magazine's photographic appeal experiences a worldwide distribution. Some only read and appreciate it as I have done for years, others vacation there, while a fortunate few actually relocate there.

Whatever use you make of it, Arizona Highways, is a terrific magazine with pictorial views into a picturesque state, while at the same time offering great travel tips.

Semper Fi.

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We love this magazine. We do the road trips and have seen some great areas and scenery. The magazine helps to give us great places to explore.

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I have enjoyed Arizona Highways for years. Now that I live in AZ it helps me know where to go & what to see. The photography is outstanding. I always mention to my son (an 18 yr resident) about the hiking trails. Some are new to him. I do keep the magazines for reference. Being new to AZ I would like to see plants identified so I can purchase ones I like or at least know the names of those I see on the roadways/fields/mountains/etc. Same with wildlife. Thanks for a wonderful magazine on AZ.

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With the yearly automatic renewal, it is easy for forgetful me to renew my mother's gift! Great magazine and I really love the automatic renewal!

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Brew Your Own (1-year auto-renewal)

An excellent 'every-man' (or woman) mag about the fine art of homebrewing. I've been a homebrewer for over 20 years and have seen a lot of stuff come and go, yet I still get good ideas out of each issue (and not just recipes, although the Szamatulski's contributions are usually good). Typically, in the area of gadgets.

So you wanna learn to brew? Get one of Papazian's books, and a subscription to this magazine, and your off to a good start (Papazian's magazine 'Zymurgy' is good, too -but can be a little overly 'techie' for my tastes)

I don't know what would make me give this a 5-star, it just seems like there's room for improvement. Although I can't put my finger on exactly what.

Cheers, y'all. Relax, don't worry -have a homebrew.

I see some of these reviews dated 2004 and 2003 and I want to reassure everyone that this is still the best source of information for home brewers available in a magazine. I wish that they would go to a full 12 months schedule instead of the every other month in winter schedule they have now. With style guidelines and features as well as how-to articles and the section "Ask Mr. Wizard" is a great help. The readership is large enough that if some mis-information is printed about a product or style in one issue, some industry expert is going to clarify the issue next month.

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I have been brewing for about 5 years or so and this magazine has been very informative and helpful. The tips and tricks to make you go from a plastic bucket and pre-boxed beer kit maker (don't get me wrong these make great homebrew) to have the confidence to expand to glass carboys (double fermentation) and developing your own ingredient lists and recipies. It has lots of tips for beginners and for advanced brewers alike. A good mix in my opinion for a brewing magazine.

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Excellent magazine for the homebrewer. I look forward to each issue. There is no fluff in this magazine only things related to the interest of the homebrewer. Stay thirsty my friends.

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If you like to make your own beer in your garage then this is a good book to get but if you're looking enter competitions it's not for you.

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Wine Advocate

There is quite a cult of personality around Robert Parker, the founder of Wine Advocate. It's hard for an oenophile not to be jealous of Mr. Parker, tasting fine wines from dusk `til dawn, and he's certainly revered. Positive Wine Advocate reviews on relatively low priced wines have caused sellouts at my local wine warehouse mere hours after they'd sent out the email.

Wine Advocate is a serious magazine that looks more like a trade publication or hobbyist's classified page. There are no photographs, illustrations, advertisements, or lifestyle articles. Ever. It suits the magazine well, however, and no one ever levels the same criticisms that are hurled at Wine Spectator (e.g., advertising skews the ratings, numerous vapid articles). The beige pages are filled with enticing reviews and vintage summaries. His coverage of the Rhone region is unmatched and his coverage of the Bordeaux, while controversial, also seems accurate to me.

That said, there are a few myths. Parker himself claims that his 50 point system (which runs from 50-100) is better than the 20 point scale used in other publications (which run from 80-100, but are really more like 70-100). Having said that, no one really pays attention to anything less than an 80 in either system, and those with a good local store using the point system to choose a wine (simplistic and narrow-sighted, but common) won't consider less than an 86. Even so, I conducted a survey on the two web sites and Parker consistently rates more wines 95+, in some vintages up to three times as many (as a percentage of wines tasted), than Wine Spectator. I don't mind this at all, though, and find that my tastes match Parker's fairly consistently and that his descriptions use certain words as a tip off as to what I won't.

A few criticisms that I do care about: Parker's distaste for Burgundies is legendary and in spite of the fact that the region has had mixed results for the past few years, I have tasted some truly amazing wines from the region, but they never seem to make his pages. Of course, for the entire 2000 vintage, Wine Advocate has tasted a whopping 35 wines. Perhaps they don't submit themselves for critique, but no comprehensive wine guide would be without them. (He hired another gentleman, Pierre Rovani, to cover this region for him back in 1996.) There is also a weird neglect of German Riesling. This appears to be dissipating somewhat this year, but it's confusing nonetheless.

Coverage, at least of Italy, looks to be expanded this year with the hiring of a third critic (Daniel Thomases, devoted entirely to Italy says the bio).

It bears mention that the articles from this magazine appear on the web site (which has its own, separate fee) thirty days after the paper issue is mailed to subscribers. The magazine is also more expensive. Thus, the only advantage to the magazine, aside from being able to bring it to the store, is that you get a slight jump on those who only subscribe to the site.

Whatever medium you choose to view it in, this is my preference for wine publications, despite its shortcomings.

After reading a neighbor's Wine Advocate while catsitting, I decided to subscribe (to the electronic version eRobertParker). What I like about the reviews is actually not the numerical ratings, or even Parker's adjectives, but his incredibly detailed notes on the grape blends involved, vineyards, producers and winemaking. For example, here's a review of one of my favorite wines taken from the April 2004 Wine Advocate, which is fairly typical of a Parker review:

2001 Numanthia

Numanthia

Toro, Spain

Tempranillo (a dry red table wine)

The flagship offering, the 2001 Numanthia, is fashioned from a 70-100 year old Tinta de Toro vineyard planted at a 2300 foot elevation. After a 28 day maceration, the wine undergoes malolactic in barrel, is aged 19 months in new French oak, and is bottled without fining or filtration. The spectacular, opaque purple-colored 2001 offers an explosive nose of melted licorice, barbecue smoke, blackberries, creme de cassis, camphor, and graphite. Full-bodied with gorgeously rich, concentrated fruit, a layered texture, and tremendous purity, it can be drunk young, but should hit its prime in 1-2 years, and last for 10-15.

Wine Advocate includes info on U.S. importers, a rating, and an often unreliable estimated cost (especially "bargains" which tend to be affected by Parker's ratings). All in all, a set of information that's not available elsewhere, typically not even from a winemaker's web site, when there is one.

Parker is not the only taster. There's also Pierre Rovani and Daniel Thomases, who carve up the world by region. Parker seems to have dibs on my favorite regions: Chateauneuf and Hermitage in the Rhone, Toro and Ribera del Duero in Spain, and California Zinfandel. On the downside, the coverage of regions is uneven, which is forgivable given the size of the winemaking world. I, for one, would like to see more Alsatian whites reviewed.

The Wine Advocate reviews not only wines, but whole regions. They note not only who's doing what in a region, but what the weather was like for a given year and what the growers and winemakers did given the conditions. The overall ratings for regions and vintages have proven very reliable in my experience.

I prefer the web site to the magazine, because it has all the back issues, and allows you to search. It also includes wine news, amateurish (though funny) cartoons, and lifestyle pieces filed under "Hedonist's Gazette", where you can read about dinners and tastings that would cost us punters thousands of dollars if they could be bought at all.

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Of the two major wine magazines, Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate, I have to say that Wine Advocate is my preferred source for finding a truly exceptional wine to enjoy. Wine Advocate is primarily the work of the noted wine critic Robert Parker, who is sometimes accused of being one of the leading "wine snobs" in the industry. Although Parker does use some pretentious lingo and some obscure references in his tasting notes, I find his tasting descriptions generally more accurate than those of the critics of Wine Spectator. Sure, he dislikes Burgundy, but at least now he has hired a more than competent fellow critic (Pierre Rovani) to cover that region for him.

Both Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate have been criticized for writing too many superlative reviews of less than exceptional wines, but I feel that Parker and Wine Advocate are less guilty in that respect, even though, as a previous reviewer noted, he does put more wines in the coveted 95+ point range. Still, Wine Advocate does a far better job than Wine Spectator of placing wines and their ratings in perspective, and avoiding clichés such as "vintage of a lifetime" that the Spectator frequently falls prey to. I have found Parker and Wine Advocate to be superior to Wine Spectator in their coverage of Bordeaux, especially in my favorite sub-regions, Sauternes and Barsac.

My only major complaints about Wine Advocate is that Parker generally assumes that all of his readers can afford to pay the relatively high price for his publication (currently more than $12/issue on Amazon). There are many 90+ point wines available for the difference between the yearly costs of Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. Additionally, Parker and Wine Advocate really do not focus as much on wine values as they could, and I have found Parker's coverage of Australia somewhat disappointing. Generally speaking, however, I find Wine Advocate to be the best major Wine Publication available in English and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys wine with a passion.

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Parker is the leading consumer analyst for the wine industry. Anyone serious about wine should subscribe to the Wine Advocate. However, I'd be doing an injustice as a reviewer if I didn't mention that you can purchase it online via Parker's eRobertParker website for only $60/year.

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I've subscribed to "The Wine Advocate", "Wine Spectator" and "Wine Enthusiast" concurrently for several years now. I enjoy the "Wine Spectator" and "Wine Enthusiast" magazines for their articles and features, but I tend to be skeptical of both publications' wine reviews due to their reliance on advertising revenues from the wine industry. In contrast, Robert Parker's "Wine Advocate", newsletter doesn't rely on ad revenue and this presumably allows him to be more candid in his ratings. I also prefer Mr. Parker's (and Pierre Rovani's) evaluation and commentary in "The Wine Advocate", over the various other wine magazine critics.

Does this mean that I enjoy every wine rated highly by "The Wine Advocate"? Of course not. In fact, my wife and I recently drank a 2000 vintage Barbaresco that Mr. Parker rated 90 points (and "ready to drink"), yet we felt the wine was still overly tannic and tight. In truth, there's no substitute for popping corks and tasting wines for yourself, regardless of what the critics pronounce. That said, I believe the Wine Advocate is consistently better at rating wines more accurately than other wine publications... Like subjective wine ratings, this is merely my opinion.

Tropical Fish Hobbyist

I've been reading TFH Mag. since I was a kid. At that time it used to show articles on reptiles, frogs, etc. Fortunantly it got even better when it became am exclusively aquarium fish Magazine again. Besides it's a complete magazine, it delivers international subscriptions, so I could have mine here in Brazil. It covers every aspect of fish care, aquarium maintance, new species, diseases, aquarium display, etc. It worths every dime you spend on it. The best thing is that you can keep old issues, as I do, because they are always useful. Go ahead, you wont regret.

In past years, there were other good magazines in the hobby. During the last couple of years however, TFH has taken the crown as the best. I read every issue cover to cover.

I receive two fish magazines, but if budget forced me to choose just one, this would be it.

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I have read TFH magazine for several years and have found it to be an excellent periodical about aquaria. It tries to accomodate all levels of hobbiests and I think it succeeds. It covers saltwater, reefs, freshwater and has special sections such as Discus questions or questions from children. I've yet to be disappointed with an issue. They are great to keep and go back to later for information on particular species.

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I really like the great articles concerning the scientific exploration in various parts of the world and the continued search of tropical freshwater fish. Their newest addition is the livebearer section which TFH is now adding to their brilliant magazine.

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First the positive. This magazine is well laid-out and has good photography for the most part. The articles are informative. There are enough reviews on here extolling the virtues of this magazine, so let me tell you the downside.

First, if you have saltwater aquariums you will find this magazine a disappointment as I have. The majority of the articles are for freshwater aquariums and ponds. I got this magazine for a year, and in that time found a handful of articles that were worthwhile for me as a marine fishkeeper. Needless to say, I won't be resubscribing. Of the saltwater articles they did have, many of them covered rare and hard-to-find species, and species that are hard to take care of. So again, not a lot of relevancy to most of us saltwater enthusiasts.

My other main problem with the magazine is that it uses the scientific names of fish almost exclusively. Now, I myself am a scientist, and there is no argument that scientific names are the most accurate and descriptive, however the title of the magazine is Tropical Fish HOBBYIST. The use of the scientific name and classification might be useful ONCE in the article, but after that becomes very cumbersome to read. There were many articles in which the common name of the fish was never used at all, and one had to rely on one of the pictures or a guidebook to even find out what fish they were talking about. If the goal of the articles is to communicate with the reader, then I don't think they're meeting that goal.

Another minor complaint is that while the photographs that are there are good, they do not provide illustrations of all the fish discussed in the article.

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