My Library

Please note, there are a lot of links in this review, so I have them opening in popup windows for convenience.

GOOD Magazine premiered with the September/October 2006 issue, and from what I can tell the name is an understatement. I'll admit that I picked it up on the merits I saw in the first 60 seconds. Yes, I judged a magazine by its cover. But what a cover. The first issue's front cover invites you to create your own «Do-it-yourself personal manifesto» by filling in the blank in «_________ (verb) like you give a damn.»

In smaller print at the bottom of the front cover, we learn that «GOOD is for people that give a damn. It's an entertaining magazine about things that matter.» The spine of the magazine proclaims «I love America» followed by a quote from Thomas Paine:

My country is the world and my religion is to do GOOD.

The magazine is, as might be obvious by now, a «do-GOODer» magazine. From Ben Jervey's story «Chasing Zero» (his experiment spending a month in New York City trying to reduce his ecological footprint by any means necessary) to the homework assignment on the back page (create a bumper sticker to encourage the person in the SUV behind you to vote) to what happens to money from subscriptions (100% of it is donated ubscription money to one of 12 charities of the subscribers choice) this magazine is about doing GOOD. As with the Chasing Zero experiment, a lot of that doing GOOD lapses into what might be typically called «left wing» territory, but in a GOOD way. The magazine does venture into the political, with a guide to the midterm elections that focuses on the seedier side of both parties, but the focus is apolitical, it's about what the the individual can do that is GOOD. We libertarian and Republican types call that voluntarism and we consider it a GOOD thing. Far better that someone concerned about the environment subscribe to this magazine and have his $20 donated to Room to Read and help establish libraries in the Third World, than that he spend that $20 trying to raise everyone's taxes to support another ineffective bureaucracy.

The magazine isn't preachy, rabidly partisan or boring. It lives up to the promise of «an entertaining magazine about things that matter.»

A one-year subscription (six issues) is $20, of which 100% is donated to one of 12 charities of your choice: Ashoka, City Year, Creative Commons, Donors Choose, Generation Engage, Millenium Promise, Oceana, Room to Read, Teach for America, Unicef, Witness, World Wildlife Fund.

magazine,Good magazine