A magazine called Surface makes one instantly wonder if it's possible that the editorial can have any depth. According to its editors, it can, thus the tagline "substance/style." In reality, the magazine doesn't pretend to be anything other that what it is--an expensively produced glossy that skims the surface of fashion, architecture, and design.

Larry Dobrow channels his inner teenager. What. Ever.

Winter is looming, and Natural Health immediately caught my eye on the supermarket magazine rack with its "Winter Wellness Guide." A smiling model in a hot pink hat and scarf jumps off the page and makes those grueling months look like a downright party.

I have little idea why Town & Country is categorized as a magazine in the first place. With its barely-there stories and seeming 70/30 ad/edit ratio, the pub strikes me as little more than a dashingly appointed catalog of stuff for über-wealthy Caucasians.

Tango has lofty goals: its tagline is "Love, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness," which is clearly what most couples (and single people) are striving for in a relationship. Rather than focusing on the relationship from the point of view of one gender, Tango tries to look at both sides, and this point of view extends into product reviews as well as stories and advice columns.

I'm a fairly curious guy, especially when I see a chance to parlay whatever knowledge I can glean into personal gain. And so the December Discover caught my eye with two of its cover queries: "Why are people nice?" (why, they're practically begging me to take advantage of that kindness), and "Can science predict when the housing bubble will burst?" (if so, remind me to kidnap Columbia's zoology chair for my next open-house jamboree).

More than 40 years after Sex and the Single Girl was first published, Cosmo is the highest circulation women's magazine on the stand. Millions of women around the country rely on the magazine's dating and sex advice. In the age of "The Rules," here's the game according to the ladies at Cosmo.

I'll answer your question before you ask it: Yes, of course I'm bitter. Over the past 12 months, I've bleached my teeth, dropped 35 pounds and trimmed my shoulder hair so that I'm no longer confused with lesser primates. I've started wearing form-fitting T-shirts and perfected a come-hither gaze. And yet still I received no love from People's "Sexiest Man Alive" arbiters. Again. So very hurtful.

Cookie magazine, the new parenting publication from Fairchild Publications, wants to make its readers feel like parenting is glamorous and luxurious--even when every parent knows the cold, hard truth.

It's worth taking a more in-depth look at King, as its tush-happy covers don't exactly reflect the breadth of its content. I'd argue that the magazine boasts a considerably higher IQ and a more refined social/political mission than its detractors would acknowledge.