The Evolving Newsroom

Why is it that favourite magazines become so unappealing once you've subscribed to them?

They always seem to end up in a reproachful plastic-wrapped pile in a corner. Yet just a month or two earlier I couldn't wait to get to the newsagent to pick up the latest edition.

Is it misjudged appetite - ie thinking you read the magazine every week when in fact you only read it once a month and thus quickly get inundated?

Or is it familiarity breeds contempt?

Whatever it is, I hope it doesn't apply to holiday books. I've just ordered a pile and have a suspicion that my eyes are bigger than my reading capacity.

Santa's more or less assured me I'll be getting Wikinomics in a week or so along with The Wisdom of Crowds. But then I went and ordered a few more for good measure: Everything is Miscellaneous, Glut and The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Here's hoping they're readably written, if you know what I mean, else I'll be starting the new year with a reproachful pile of paperbacks by my bed.