Little Magazines, Big Magazines

Here's an article in praise of The New Criterion, the little magazine that's survived for 25 years by pitting itself against "the complacent, jacket-copy style reviewing of the popular press, as well as the obscurantism promulgated by some corners of the academy". (Co-editor Roger Kimball is fond of quoting Oxford philosopher J.A. Smith: "Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in life — save only this — that if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot.")

Meanwhile, the librarians at The New Yorker continue to answer readers' questions. In the latest instalment: who wrote under the pen name Guy Fawkes, and who was the Constant Reader?