National Geographic is thriving, for the same reason that so many other "Stuff white people like" products are thriving. It helps people feel good about the environment without really challenging them.

As far as young people go, NG has a separate magazine aimed at children (National Geographic Kids) which is very popular among liberal parents like us who want to provide the tykes with an environmental education.

Also, they now have newstand sales, which probably dramatically improves their revenue stream.

I suppose with the mainstreaming of pornography and the easy accessibility thereof to young boys through the internet, National Geographic has lost much of its original raison d'etre.

My daughter subscribes. She's 37. I used to love the big maps when I was a kid.

My parents subscribed and it was a big influence on me when I was young. Great for school projects too. There's a lot of stuff about biological anomalies such as tree-climbing fish, naked mole rats, platypuses, etc., which just fascinated me when I was young. We just gave a lot of back issues to my beloved grandnephew.

Past the age of about 14-16 it's pretty oversimplified and journalistic, but it's great for 10-14.

I still have a box full of the big maps.

I suppose with the mainstreaming of pornography and the easy accessibility thereof to young boys through the internet, National Geographic has lost much of its original raison d'etre.

Anyone else notice that cable TV shows that feature such things now have warnings regarding "anthropological nudity"?

For some reason this euphemism really amuses me.

I still have my membership after nearly 25 years. I don't disagree with John's characterization in 4; there are plenty of topics that can sustain my interest at this level and no deeper. Various species of jellyfish, for example.

We're white people who subscribe to both NG and the NG Kids magazines. The NG Kids magazine is full of advertisements for junk food and that bothers my nutritionist wife. Me too, a bit, I suppose. Otherwise my white kids like it.

My parents subscribed from the 70's through the 90's and still have all the back issues, I think. I used the big maps to make covers for my books in high school.

When I was very little, we subscribed to Ranger Rick magazine, with which I was rather obsessed.

"Big NG Maps" will be the first post on "Stuff Unfogged People Like."

9: Did Ranger Rick have those super upclose pictures on the back?

Yup! That's the one.

I credit Ranger Rick for my complete lack of interest in human beings as a child. (National Geographic lacked interest for me because it was so often about, you know, people.) I never owned a "human doll," but I had hundreds of strange stuffed animals. I'm with John Ruskin; human dolls are scary and horrible.

I still have much of the NG maps I acquired as a child (and the magazines themselves). Including the giant universe special edition.

I'm still a map geek and just love to waste time looking on Google Maps and Google Earth.

I'm pretty sure that the trait "subscribes to National Geographic and saves years worth of back issues, though not in order to read them again, but because the thought of throwing them away is unbearable" describes a demographically meaningful category. It's racially white, but not at all identical to the "white people" of "things white people like".

I'm surprised, frankly, that Mark Penn has never identified them as a key swing voter group.

I think my parents used the excuse that we might want to cut out pictures from them for school projects, which we did. After elementary school, though, I think it was because having a library of yellow spines looked classy, almost academic. (My shelf of academic journals that I will probably never open again doesn't look much different.) People also keep libraries full of books they will never open again, right?

I'm with John Ruskin

Then don't let him see your ladyflower, AWB -- he'll freak!

I will most certainly not, oudemia. I am a lady.

But no Effie!

I think my parents used the excuse that we might want to cut out pictures from them for school projects, which we did.

I had a teacher that wouldn't let us use NG pictures for school projects. I not talking about school copies of NG; we couldn't cut up old NGs from home and use them for the projects. She wouldn't be a party to NG desecration.

NG has a lot of features that attract compulsive hoarders. They are pretty. They carry some status. You can spend time sorting and displaying them.

Actually, its pretty amazing that I (a white, environmentalist, with borderline OCD) never fell into the trap of hoarding them. My father-in-law as a sizable stash. Maybe he'll let me show them to my older child.

We still get and keep them, although the original school project rationale is about over, but I don't know if I have it in my to toss them. My grandparents had stacks of really old ones (from say 1910 on, I think my great-grandfather subscribed), up in their attic. Good to stare at when you sneaked up there to smoke your grandfather's Larks. In fact there is one picture of a very young woman from some Central or South American tribe they I can almost conjure up in my mind to this day...

i've subscribed on and off since i was in high school.

It would be fun to do a historical survey of all of the art that has been made that used depictions of exotic foreigners as an excuse to show naked women. National geographic, orientalist painting. There's got to be a lot of this out there.

I'm not really interested in the politics of these genres. I just want to know which is the most sexy.

In fact there is one picture of a very young woman from some Central or South American tribe they I can almost conjure up in my mind to this day.

She was in the alltogether, wasn't she? We won't judge you.

I haven't read many National Geographics, but I feel compelled to mention that my great-granfather was a photographer and correspondent for NG who was, among other stories, in Russia during the Russian revolution, and present for the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen

That is very cool, NickS!

I subscribe to NG and my kids get the kids version. My daughter LOVES it. She cannot read, but she flips through every single page as only a true OCD person can.

Oops. I forget to add that I am white.

NickS -- That is super cool. Did he suffer the mummy's curse?

Will, does your daughter let your throw them away, or does she hoard them with the markers?

My parents subscribed for a while and I suspect we probably will if we have kids. Manta rays! Tiny robots! Giant close-ups of really scary spiders that look like they want to eat me!

A classic of my anthropological education.

lemmy caution--I can imagine a teacher like that. Hilarious.

I grew up reading 1960s issues. It was a rude shock to get my own subscription as a gift in the 1990s and see how much shorter and simpler the articles were.

I don't read it these days, except if I'm stranded at a coffee table.

My parents subscribed most of the time that I was growing up, and hoarded all the old issues without (as far I know) re-reading them. I also liked the big maps, and had some of them tacked up on the walls of my room. I think they donated their collection to some poor rural school once I moved away. Third-world titillation for the underprivileged!

I think National Geographic and Time were the only magazines my grandparents had ever subscribed to. They never threw out the NGs, so I grew up reading them. It was a strange way to learn about the world, since you'd read a contemporary article about the energy crisis, and then see an issue from the 1960s touting the amazing transformative effects of oil money on some third world country with nary a thought for possible blowback down the road. As I remember it, the pictures of young women disporting in the altogether were down to about 1 ever 3 or 4 issues by the mid-1980s.

I just picked up the current number at a newstand to read at lunch. It was kind of depressing. Especially the piece about the Sahel. No big map, just a little fold-out one of northern Africa.

I remember an article about the restoration of Leonardo's "Last Supper" that was the longest magazine article I had read to that point. My mom let me read it during church, because it was about a jesus-related thing.

I get their emails; does that count? Actually, I read January's issue last weekend (found myself somewhere with no other reading material) and enjoyed it, and was wondering about subscribing. But I wouldn't want to throw them out, and keeping them would annoy me. I have a few old ones, including an Apollo something landing from 1971 - I love moon pictures.

My children like NG Kids too, we buy it occasionally. I've heard a lot of people complaining about the adverts, so I counted once, and there were about 4 pages of ads in the whole thing, which didn't seem too bad to me.

My senior year of college my roommate subscribed to it. I was writing an honors thesis using a bunch of post-colonial theory, so we would always have NGs on our kitchen table along with, like, The Location of Culture.

The thing about NG Kids adverts is that they sneak into the content itself. Oh, an artical about pirates the month that Pirates of the Carribean III comes out? How informative!

25: She was in the alltogether, wasn't she? We won't judge you.

Topless actually. Many years later, as he faced the judgment of the Mineshaft, JP Stormcrow was to remember that distant afternoon when he went to his grandfather's attic to discover breasts.

As I recall their shape and color were more along the lines of my youthful imaginings than usual for NG. So yes, I was simultaneously being a privileged, sexist, ageist, racist, imperialist pyromaniac, kleptomaniac and onanist up there in the dust-moted stuffiness of that attic. Judge away white people.

Oh well, that sort of thing doesn't bother me. It's not like it's actually going to influence our lives.

God, I hated Pirates of the Caribbean!

43: Your comment prompted me to look it up in Wikipedia. You know I had never put together that the movies were based on the long-running Pirates attraction at the Disney theme parks. D'oh!

And actually the adult NG has at times merged ads and real content, one time there was a map advertisement that was not clearly recognizable as an ad at first look. I recall being shocked when they began taking ads at all. The NG Museum near DuPont Circle in DC is small but a nice place to take the kids.

Noting for no particular reason that old National Geographics are among the top items used bookshops find themselves declining, over and over again, to buy. Along with encyclopedia sets and old bibles. And Reader's Digest Condensed Books. "Oh, no, thank you, we'll have to pass on that."

45:

All coming from people like my mother. "Surely, someone will want these!!"

She hates to throw out anything. Old yellowed board games that are missing pieces? "Some less fortunate child would love this!!!"

No Mom. They wont.

I want to confess my desire to spend a day at work with parsimon. Let me know when "Bring Will to work" day is.

I priced Encyclopedia Brittanicas on the internet. Low resale value! We're hoping for a schoolroom that wants them. Otherwise, the beloved grandnephew. Otherwise, burn.

I am like Will's mom.

will, it would be much more interesting if we were an open shop, but we're internet only now. Sometime I'll post a picture somewhere of what the place looks like (room after room of disaster). Back in the day, though, back in the day ... well. More than a few characters coming through. Why, just the other day my partner and I were looking for the old drawings created for us by frequent customer Mr. So, who explained at length how America was actually discovered by the Japanese, who had settled in Minnesota: the drawings demonstrated that since Florida is a penis and Massachusetts a vagina, Minnesota was the key. You could see it in the picture he drew (it involved arrows and labels for "pen." and "vag.").

I always found paper and pen for Mr. So, just in case. Some other people didn't like him so much.

email me the link, or post it here. please

14: That universe special edition was great. I got the table-sized NG atlas when I was 12 just for the 20 pages of universe and ocean floor maps in the front.

My dad was never very clued-in to the young folks, but the best thing he ever did was get me a subscription when I was 7.

I think anyone who got them as a kid still has their big-ass maps. I only threw out my 15 year collection a couple of years ago.

PS. I'm half white. Does that count?

depends which half

51: The shop, or Mr. So's picture? Shop pictures are at the shop (I think) and are blurry. Mr. So's genius is lost to the ages.

48: John, the internet has killed encyclopedias. Donate if you want, but whoever you give them to will throw them out too -- to be pulped for recycling at best.

the link to the shop.

I like books. Might as well spend my money on you as anyone else.

It is my conviction that anyone who makes their living in second hand books, except for parsimon of course, has a past. Above all the book scouts.

A classroom is the only place where I can see the encyclopedia being useful. And maybe not even there.

Isn't there a market for selling used and unwanted books to furniture stores?

(I associate reader's digest condensed books with sitting in comfortable expensive chairs, being extremely bored, and waiting for my parents to get through with looking at furniture.)

59: Only if they're handsome bindings. At least as far as I know. Furniture stores? Certainly interior decorators buy by the linear foot, a certain number of feet of green or brown cloth bindings, a certain number of feet of blue (say); or if higher-end decorators, leather-bound books. Content irrelevant.

Classrooms that have irregular Internet access, a limited number of computers, or students with low literacy levels can greatly benefit from encyclopedias. The last set I shepherded through donation was a 2003 set that updated the 1972 version then in use. There are plenty of schools that would appreciate used encyclopedias; the challenge is finding a cheap way to ship them.

I am inordinately fond of Juicy for 52. Boy, I loved (love) my NG atlas.

Libraries spend a lot of time rejecting copies of National Geographic too. No, I'm sorry, we don't want to add it to the collection and it won't sell at the booksale. We're going to have to pay to have it hauled away. No, we don't want your 1985 neurobiology textbook either. Much less your 1990 women's studies reader.

Parsimon might consider becoming a site for Vocation Vacations. She's got two potential customers lined up already, mess or no mess.

I'm another of the people whose parents subscribed. I read occasionally, and perhaps they did too, but I didn't observe it.

I wonder if NG's status as SWPL is partly as furniture. Those interminable back issues stacked (in our case) on a chest, in other families' case probably on bookshelves, seemed impossible to remove.

Though yes, I also loved the maps. There's a great map from maybe 2000 showing the languages of the world, colored by family, which I reordered for my current apartment.

Thank you, AWB. I had not thought about Ranger Rick in a long time. It was the nature/environmentalist periodical I actually read in my childhood, although I do remember loving the NG maps. I am going to have to get a subscription for my kids, now.

Pantene!

Sir Kraab!

I saw A recession for the less educated--so far recently and thought of the commentariat, but I wish there was more to it.

I got National Geographic World when I was a kid, which I guess is now called NG Kids. It was great.

For donating NG issues, you might check with your local literacy programs (adults or kids). I use them sometimes with my students.

Because, I compulsively hoard books but sometimes need to sell them for cash, I tend to accumulate things that can't sell, like 1990 Women's Studies Readers.

I am actually fond of collecting old textbooks in my disciplines. I think it would be fun to review changes in how, say, logic or critical thinking has been taught over the last century. That said, I will probably never do such a project. I'll just hang on to some dated logic textbooks until I am dead.

I have two Britannicas, a 1935 and one from the mid-50s. I haven't used either very much in the last 5 or 6 years, now that the internet really does have a lot of useful and trustworthy content.

The article on Lenin in the older set was written by Trotsky. The article on Socialism by Shaw. The handwritten notes correcting a couple of math articles by my actuary grandfather/uncle (my dad the orphan was raised by his aunt & uncle). My heirs will have to decide what to do with the thing, because I'll keep carting it from one place to another until the end.

My ancestors might have been "in society," but I'm not. I only go to one black-tie event a year. It's sort of a self-run party, not even really catered, and it's hosted by several people. (They do have to have a bartender.) Tweety is way more connected than I am.

At Harvard, all the Houses have formals, so they're wind up being a lot fo opportunities to wear black tie.

62: Parsimon might consider becoming a site for Vocation Vacations. She's got two potential customers lined up already, mess or no mess.

Oh. Well, I seriously doubt we could provide an experience that would feel anything like a vacation. It's pretty boring, down and dirty, it doesn't pay well, and the profession is dying, for all sorts of reasons. Not just the digitization of books and the big-boxifying of the trade; also that viable, desirable work for people these days is maximally portable, not something you actually belong to. It's not smart.

I think I'm surprised, though I shouldn't be, that people still have a romantic vision of the book trade. In any case, practically speaking, one would soon tire of the endless handling, handling, handling of books that goes on.

Although for only 3 days ... heh, and this Vocation Vacations program has people paying one to work?

Addendum to 14:

Though I do love National Geographic and topo maps I am not in fact white.

Carry on.

70: I own the 11th edition (1910) EB plus the supplements that make up the 12th and 13th. I found it in a barn bookstore in Maine on my honeymoon and thought I had gotten a real deal. It is available online now, but I enjoyed the hell out of it over the years. It is an interesting mix, gives short shrift to much natural history, but in many areas is incredibly detailed (the level and amount of Math in the article on tides for instance is unreal.) The supplement right after WWI has some of the worst encyclopedia articles I have ever seen. One on Ireland included a personal anecdote where the wife of the author was treated rudely by some Irish partisans.

My tiny book business ($2500 net so far, maybe $500 to go) has been very interesting. It shouldn't have surprised me, but it's pure supply and demand. Some very rare books are worthless because no one wants them, and some wonderful books are cheap because they've been used in classes or were at one time popular.

I'm really mostly unloading books I bought for myself but don't expect to read and don't want to transport cross country again. I've only made money on five or ten books -- definitive scholarly books unlikely to be either superceded or reprinted, and possibly a few literary first editions. One first edition that I bought for less than $10 would sell for over $100 in good condition, but it's pretty beat up.

I am not in fact white.

Woo-hoo! We've got another one!

75: The 11th edition can be worth something in good condition, not that you're thinking in those terms. Its availability online hasn't detracted horribly; it's still collectible.

I will say this before the topic goes away. You'd be astonished at what the book trade throws away. Old copies of the Joy of Cooking? meh. Mass market paperbacks, or even hardcovers, of every classic you can think of, primary and secondary? Children's books of every variety, foreign language dictionaries. Not to mention more interesting stuff. Yesterday I tossed multiple copies of a 3-volume set of translations of ancient Egyptian literature.

For a while it's a little painful to render these things trash, since you know quite well there are people out there who'd want them, and in fact might be appalled, but value is determined monetarily in our society. We're set up in such a way that throwing things away makes more sense than trying to reuse or redistribute them.

I should say: there are people who want these things if they're essentially free. It takes, of course, resources to distribute them, and there are organizations out there doing that, extremely inefficiently, with a lot of pulping along the way. University libraries are increasingly outsourcing the sell-off of their deaccessioned books to outfits that peddle them for a buck thirty-five a pop. Do you know how much volume you have to do to make that work? The Library of Congress used to throw its deaccessions in the dumpster. And a rich source it was.

We're a portable society now, so many people and so much stuff, most of which is new; there's virtually no value adhering to used stuff. Used stuff is for poor people. And it takes too much time to evaluate and redistribute it. (I've just recalled that one mass reseller of ex-library books from all over the country ships its/their unsold books after 6 months to Southeast Asia by the container-load.)

So it goes.

The Library of Congress used to throw its deaccessions in the dumpster.

A friend of mine used to cart back old maps by the armload every time he visited the LOC. This is tragic (Cf. "Librarians as Enemies of Books"), but it also happens because many places have laws that prohibit libraries from selling books which don't fit their collections, or which they don't have space for, etc. Less of a temptation if no one can benefit from the dispersal of a collection is the rationale, I suppose.

"subscribes to National Geographic and saves years worth of back issues, though not in order to read them again, but because the thought of throwing them away is unbearable" describes a demographically meaningful category.

My grandfather had an unshakable faith in the teachings of the Catholic Church, the policies of the Democratic Party, and the value of a National Geographic subscription. For years, a run going back to the '30s sat on shelves in my parent's basement. The strangely fractured view of history you got from reading issues decades apart was my experience, too. The maps always were the best part of the magazine, even more so than the boobies.

Emerson--when are you planning to move?

About a year from now, back to Portland.