Image from 2010 Mark Manalaysay print campaign for The Economist.

But, unless you’re Harold Bloom or something, don’t bring a literary magazine—that would be stupid. Here’s the beginning paragraph from a recent The Economist blog post about the launch of The American Reader comparing lit mags to, well, shit you don’t want to be putting your hands on:

Short literary fiction and critical essays are the publishing world’s equivalent of weapons-grade plutonium. Dense, highly refined, and for all but a professional few, something best avoided. The world’s demand for the stuff is met by a handful of respectable quarterlies, such as the Paris Review and Granta, and countless “little magazines” that publish experimental fiction and serve more as a proving ground for authors than something people actually read.

I can’t help but wonder what their thoughts are about Picasso and Virginia Woolf. Anyhow, read the rest. (And thanks, Review Review, for the link.)

Image from 2010 Mark Manalaysay print campaign for The Economist.