Cicada

This is a preteen/early teen mag. Lots of good writing. Well edited, has some tough stuff as written by kids themselves. It's a good magazine and is argued over for the first reading.

We gave this magazine as a gift to our granddaughter who will soon be 14. Our Library director recommended this magazine as suitable for gifted children who enjoy poetry. Our granddaughter writes her own poetry. She likes Cicada so much she asked us to renew it.

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I'm in my mid-20s now but I received Cicada when I was a teenager and I loved them. The stories and poems were stimulating and I always dreamed of submitting my own work (though I never did). I hope this is still around when I have teens in the house.

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Railway Modeller

Well produced, well photographed in color on slick paper.

I have taken this magazine for years.

It has history, model building articles with good sequence photos,

wonderful ads from British sources, and interesting monthly columns.

If you like Brit railways or just want to see how they do it across the pond,

this is an entertaining read.

This is the best magazine for those modelling British railways from the earliest steam to modern day.

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Play - UK

First off, the artwork and pictures and screenshots in here, are worth the price of admission alone. It's fantabolous, and really borders on art. The covers are like more than art. They could be framed. They work on a letter grading scale. That's A-F, including the plusses and minuses, but of course, not for the F's. Play is a very good title, because not only do they cover games, but also Anime, DVD's, and Music; all of which can be played. If you get gaming magazine ever, this has to be it. But like most everyone else, they can be a bit late in running reviews, and sometimes they get exclusives or first reviews too. I hope this review helped expose you to this work of art. But please, dont buy on here. You are sooooooooooooo getting ripped off. The price of a regular subscription is $20, so see if you can find a copy on the newstand somewhere, or even go to and subscribe there.

Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect game review magazine. To do that one would have to cover a myriad of platforms, review games with absolutely no bias, as well as be beautiful to behold. While Play magazine certainly isn't perfect, it goes quite a ways toward realizing this goal and has succeeded in supplanting my previous best of breed.

What attracted me to it initially was the visual and tactile quality of the magazine. It is quite untypical of the average US genre magazine heavy weight cover and paper, very careful attention to layout and presentation, and sharp, vivid printing. It's a rare thing nowadays when graphic designers are given such free reign.

Play covers the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, and the Game Boy Advance. There is additional coverage of anime and game related DVD's, film and music. Most reviews are 2 to 3 columns plus illustrations. They use an F through A+ grading system with the average grade being a B, so they are not completely unbiased. But the reviews, previews and in depth articles are written in a critical style that is very clear and evenhanded. These aren't just gushing blurbs.

I have no qualms about recommending the magazine it is both informative and a pleasure to peruse. The price listed is incorrect. I would advise contacting the publisher Play Magazine has a website if you are interested.

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Play Magazine is the last bastion of hope for the hardcore gamer.

Nobody loves their games as much as the guys who write Play. They live, eat, and breathe videogames. They probably sleep in videogame character sheets. These guys care about games and where the games industry is heading. This, in the end, is the greatest and worst aspect of the magazine.

Because of their undying love for games, the writers often come across as amateurish fanboys who would give five stars to anything with "Sega" or "Treasure" on the box. They also seem incapable of giving any game a bad grade, giving many poor games, accepted industry-wide as insults to the medium, average or even above average marks.

But if you take the time to sift through the reviews, you'll find the most passionate coverage of video games and the gamer lifestyle of any magazine.

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Alabama Gardener

I just moved to Alabama from Wisconsin 2 years ago....BIG difference. I had no idea which plants grew here, what certain bugs were, etc. I have learned so much from this magazine, that I go to it all the time for information. I also had the best garden ever this past year. This magazine is really worth your money!

Finally found a gardening book for my geographic location. Very helpful in gardening tips, local plants and much more information.

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Also subscribe to Virginia Gardner and enjoy both. Articles and photographs are great with good paper stock so that many can read and save the issues.

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Art De L Enluminure

Anyone reading this already knows that Illuminated Manuscripts are a passion in our modern, mass-production age. So what's the excitement here? Anyone reading this will already know the Tres Riches Heures, the Book of Kells, the Grimani Breviary, and the dozen or so "heavy hitters" of the field. They will know the great collections: The BL, the BN, the PML, etc. Many reference books are old and have mediocre black and white pictures, and you pay a small fortune for color plates, and a large fortune for facsimiles. This series addresses all that. There are full color (and great quality) photos, terrific manuscripts that are often less well-known but no less grand. I own 3 illuminations by the Dunois Master, and wanted a holdable version of the miniatures in the Dunois Hours. For about 12 bucks I have it, full size + details in glowing colors. I saw the Graduel of St. Die and was enchanted by it. No facsimile available but a whole treatise here and pictures and descriptions. Yes there's the ubiquitous Tres Riches Heures and a few others, but when you start getting into specific examples of style, technique, history, and provenance, these volumes are superb. By the way, nothing wrong with the commentaries of Jonathan Alexander, Francois Avril, and the editorial staff. For enthusiasts, this is fantastic!