Pregnancy does a fine job of steering pregnant women in the right direction, offering a progressive mix of health and lifestyle content for an audience that would seem to be vastly underserved from a publication perspective.

Quiz time. Are Allure's target readers 1)well-groomed fishermen; 2) psychologists studying the concept of sexual attraction; or 3) women seeking makeup tips? The answer's pretty obvious--but you may have hesitated anyway. For Allure is less high-profile than its iconic, glossy sisters at Condé Nast.

Precisely a year into my Magazine Rack tenure, I don't think I'm an enigma in terms of my tastes. I like publications that shoot high and inside. Which is why I'd happily waive my ignore-all-publicists policy for anybody who'd steer more magazines like American Legacy my way.

Vogue's February issue gets off to a strange start--a headline on the Contributors' page asks ''Who (or what) are you loving this Valentine's Day?" Edward Enniful, a contributing fashion editor, says he'll be loving "the Dover sole at J. Sheekey, an amazing fish restaurant in London.'' So much for romance: I guess the Dover sole is forever.

I find myself faced with a terrible dilemma. On one hand, having just upgraded to high-definition television, I'm more in love with the medium today than I've ever been. On the other, I have some seriously not-nice things to say about one of its venerable institutions, the recently revamped TV Guide.

The last time I picked up an issue of Psychology Today was circa 1999, when the subscription I had from my college days expired. I've certainly grown over the past seven years, and seeing the February issue of Psychology Today put me in a warm, cozy, reflective state, making it impossible for me to refuse the trip down memory lane.

Muscle mags intimidate me. The cleanly plucked torsos, the Giambi-esque bulging eyeballs, the ads beseeching me to "shatter fat loss plateaus"... no thank you. So, upon encountering the January/February issue of Maximum Fitness, my initial impulse was to run in the other direction.

The December/January issue of Pink, the relatively new women's business/lifestyle magazine, does not begin or end promisingly. The first section leads off with a statement bound to elicit major duhs: "Showing up at a business meeting or job interview with bad breath can give the wrong impression." The last page is a pointless, unfunny cartoon--something to do with an M.B.A. and makeovers.

Of all the mass-media megabrands out there, I don't see too many walking quite as tall as the National Geographic Society nowadays. Its cable arm is regularly out-Discoverying the Discovery Channel, its film unit hit paydirt with a bunch of marching penguins, and its kid publications rank among the few imaginative enough to divert young'uns from the gaming console. Add to this hot streak National Geographic Adventure, a travel/outdoor hybrid that should spur even the most resolute couch potato to break out the parka.

When TV Guide went from digest-sized to full-sized magazine, I wondered, for about eight seconds, what magazine would take its place at the grocery store checkout line. Now I know--it's Justice, a combination of People, Us Weekly, The National Enquirer and Court TV all rolled into one.