Pros: Utne is a great publication with interesting articles.
Cons: You can't read this magazine in 10 minutes.

I’m so tired of “sound bite” magazines. Publishers have gone shorter and shorter on articles and bigger and bigger on photos and info boxes. Most magazines read like bumper stickers these days--biggest, best, newest. The headlines look cute at the...

Pros: some interesting articles and viewpoints
Cons: slanted in their views.

The Utne Reader, now simply called Utne is a literary magazine that I used to subscribe to years ago. It was also nice to get this bimonthly mag in the mail. They usually had interesting articles although with a decidedly liberal slant. ...

Pros: They read all the best lefty magazines and then give you the best.
Cons: It only comes every other month

When this magazine first started appearing on news stands in the roaring 80's, I caught myself wondering, "what is an 'utne', and who reads a magazine about utne?" Well eventually, I picked one up, and soon I was a subscriber. Eric...

Pros: Insightful social commentary, great variety of views.
Cons: Only a short step from quirkiness to goofy--Utne seldom missteps.

Utne Reader sits at the top of my magazine reading list. How did it get there? Interesting, offbeat articles that are sometimes extremely insightful and rarely longer than a few pages (images of me grimly slogging through a New York Times...

Pros: interesting ads, great articles, great concern for customer satisfaction and reader community
Cons: narrowing focus

The Utne Reader offers 6 issues a year of progressive and visionary politics. The magazine combines original features with articles reprinted from other progressive magazines such as Mother Jones, Northern Lights, Audobon, The Nation, and a lot you...

Pros: nice history
Cons: the concept is history

Pre-Internet Dinosaur

Time was I bothered to pick up the Utne Reader. I thought it was remarkable that a magazine existed which published the kind of liberal, thoughtful content found in Utne's pages. It's true that the Utne Reader...

Pros: Diverse, fresh, engaging
Cons: sometimes too diverse, sometimes uninteresting

Tired of run of the mill articles; bored by the seemingly identical articles that proliferate most magazines. Or do you just prefer a diverse and expansive magazine that never delivers the same thing twice.

Compiled from magazines all...

Pros: Best of the alternative press
Cons: expensive only 6 issues/year

Every other month the Utne Reader arrives at my house with the best of of the leftist press. The Utne Reader reprints only the smartest, funniest, most informational and the best articles available in 100s of zines and other hard to find...

Pros: best of the alternative media
Cons: some are turned off by anything "alternative"

Don't get me wrong Newsweek is a good magazine but like I said in my review of it I do feel that occasionally it does not provide a well rounded perspective on some issues. Now for most people couldn't care less about perspectives, but for you and I who...

Pros: Very broad range of topics
Cons: Crazy last name of the first editor

The Utne Reader is by far, one of my favorite things that arrives in the mail. It is a dream of a magazine. It is actually a compilation of articles from other sources. However, the reader is never quite sure what topic of interest you may uncover. The...

Pros: Diversity; bound to be at least a few good articles
Cons: A lot of unpleasant things to think about, but nothing to do; choppy, sloppy editing, hypocritical at times, ridiculously expensive for reprinted material...

Utne Reader used to be a happy magazine, a thing I devotedly read as an idealistic teen-ager. A sort of last bastion of aging hippies who hadn't actually burnt out but were instead still devoted to "the cause," Utne Reader offered...

Pros: intelligent, amusing, thought-provoking
Cons: angle is more opinion than commentary

Utne Reader awakens my passions for Sociology -- it encapsulates four years of college thought into a palatable, awakening read on social behavior. Each issue is a visitor's tour through the variables that effect human quality of life.

The...

Pros: Sample of many different magazines
Cons: Liberial viewpoint -- only a con to conservatives

"The field guide for balanced living comprised of thought-provoking original essays and the best articles from over 2000 alternative media sources. Each bi-monthly issue is a compelling compendium of perspectives on social change, environment,...

Pros: encourages more open thinking
Cons: only arrives six times a year

I've been using the Utne Reader in my marketing courses for about ten years, and the students are always amazed that such a magazine exists.

None have heard of it, so it is a wonderful way to expose them to something new. We spend a lot of...

Pros: Gets you onto stuff you need to know
Cons: Does so with an eye to comforting a class of people that don't especially need the comfort

First off, I have to admit to having had an Utne Reader subscription for years---every month it was like getting sick on Cheez-its; makes you ache, but you can't stop eating until the box is empty. I secretly enjoyed the breadth of information the mag...