Review: BBC History Magazine Delivery Options

As a long time fan of BBC History Magazine I was frustrated when my bifocals were no longer up to the challenge of it's text. It is a beautifully designed magazine, the sort I enjoy flipping through as much as I enjoy reading. Unfortunately the effect of small fonts and bold colors meant slow going. So last year I started exploring my iPad options.

My first stop was Zinio. The subscription price was reasonable and I read other magazines with this app. Unfortunately, the thing that makes Zinio ideal for those is not enabled for the BHM. When reading articles in some magazines, Zinio brings the selected article up in a pop up window, allowing you to enjoy the layout without sacrificing readability. For BHM you can only pinch and zoom - moving the entire page and being forced to zoom it back before turning the page. It's tedious, but not impossible. My life doesn't lend itself to tedium, so I have 12 issues all half read in my Zinio library. A big change from my cover to cover preference.

Next I gave Amazon a shot. With the Kindle Fire on the market I assumed the BHM would be a full color magazine with all the detailing I adore. It was very much not. Large blocks of black and white text, tiny tokens of art begging for space on the page, the effect was to make me appreciate even more the artistry of BHM's staff. Kindle for iPad rendered BHM high school textbook dull. I quickly abandoned it. It was a can of Ensure when I wanted a full meal.

The last option under consideration was the native iPad app. I use a few Newsstand apps. The lack of consistency across them is similar to the lack of consistency across Zinio, but with a further irksome aspect. Each Newsstand app requires it's own password and it's own operation quirks. While the magazine in the iPad app is the most attractive (and possibly the most readable) it still lacks complete immersion. The iPad native version of BHM is my favorite, so I committed for a year. We'll see how that stacks up against my Zinio experience.

I didn't try Google Play out - but there is always next year. BHM has a roundup of your delivery options with prices per country as well. It's interesting to me that unlike American based magazines UK Print subscribers have to pay extra for a digital version. The U.S. market has a weird convention that buying a paper version means free access to the digital one. I think digital delivery is a medium that hasn't quite matured but my eyes hope we find the right balance soon.

Review: BBC History Magazine

 But wait, you might be saying, this is not a book. It's not even an e-book. You're right. I can't deny that BBC History Magazine is, by it's own admission, not a book. It occurred to me that some readers may not be aware of this really outstanding publication. It seems like a lot for the American reader to spend on a magazine, I know. I take advantage of the Christmas subscription rates. December often brings a sharp reduction. (The normal digital price hovers around $7 USD, the paper issue around $8 USD.)

Yet this is one of the very few things I still purchase in paper format. Without fail, without question, without blinking at price fluctuations when I did not have a subscription. For the price of an Agency paperback I get hours more of enjoyment. I listen to the podcast as well, but never before reading the issue cover to cover. Sometimes, rarely, I disagree with BBC History utterly. Challenged on an article referring to Native Americans as 'Indians' the Letter Column asserted that 'Indian' was the correct (indeed preferred) American term even citing the Bureau of Indian Affairs as proof. Let's just say it's not as simplistic as it was made out to be.

Those sort of quibbles aside, BBC History consistently offers excellent and engaging history made completely accessible. Want to know what the streets of Tudor London smelled like? They've got you covered, right down to why it was bad but better than the Seine. Wondering if the Roman Occupation was all that? Britannia has a defender in BBC History. If I had to give up an expenditure in my entertainment budget, this magazine would be one of the very last items to go. We don't have an American magazine of this caliber, obsessed as we are with WW2 and the Civil War. A magazine that would delve into King Philip's War or the Trouble With Trumans? Not easy to find, and often slanted to a certain political point of view to boot.

If you've a magazine of the same quality as BBC History, please recommend it to me. If you've never checked out BBC History hit their website up to sample the wares.