If you are anything like me, your curiosity knows no bounds. You will read anything. The back of the washing up liquid bottle or the National Enquirer. Virginia Wolff or Jackie Collins. Every magazine you can lay your hands on: from the luxuriously matt pages of the new Harpers Bizzare to the latest edition of the scrumptiously lovely Charlie and Lola comic.
I read and I read and I read some more.
And in all of it there is something to magpie. An idea or turn of phrase to squirrel away. A picture that turns my toe’s up in delight or a slither of gossip I can barely wait to share (I am the most outrageous gossip).
Mine is a voracious appetite, never truly sated, so when I saw magazines of the never spotted before variety I could not help myself but fritter away money I barely have on words that just might have an undiscovered part of myself unfurling.
And so it is with both Oh Comely and (oh bliss) The Gentlewoman: both the delicious cross between independant zine and magazine and both resplendant with fresh new voices, very few adverts, art direction to die for and subject matter that bridges the gap between traditional magazine fodder and the very individual intelligent writing most oft to be found in the kind of blogs we all aspire to write.
Where
Oh Comely is cutesy and fun (an article about what you can and cannot have delivered by Royal Mail really made me giggle) ,
The GentleWoman is unspeakably stylish and rather eccentrically combines traditional subject matter with avant garde women (Like Modern Housekeeping with Pearl Lowe), to glorious effect. While many will dismiss them as too “artsy” to become part of their regular magazine reportoir, others will be thrilled by the quirky, thought provoking content and enjoy the experience of reading something entirely new, because isn’t it essential to keep on stretching our personal boundaries? To keep dipping our toes in previously uncharted waters?
Oh Comely and The Gentlewoman are very different and perhaps neither will thank me for drawing comparisons between the two, but where both shine is in the offering of that which to those tired of the repetive noise intrinsic to most modern magazines, is music to our ears and giddy inspiration to our ever thirsty souls. Here in the UK both are available (to those of us mourning the demise of our Darling Borders) in W.H.Smith and elsewhere available for international delivery online…
I can barely wait to climb into bed with both and a cup of Tranquility this evening….
They both sound delightful – there are many things that frustrate me about living at the bottom of the world (almost) and one of them is the lack of magazine variety…
Thank goodness for the internet! Although, there is nothing like curling up in bed with a cuppa and something wonderful to read 🙂
Oh Flossy I can well imagine. How about I send you a copy of The GentleWoman? Email me if you would like a little gift Honey Pie.x