READS FOR ROAD TRIPS

Travel magazines are for people who can actually take a vacation. Media City’s bosses are of the opinion that relaxation is for slackers and think time is better spent reviewing magazines about holidays we’ll never get time off for. But we’re not bitter.

Hey, it ain’t all that bad: the pictures of clear blue skies and even clearer, bluer seas in Islands are tranquil enough to steady our mind’s rage. And if we ever get the chance to get away, the piece on 24 Caribbean trips to take that last less than a week had a number of good ideas that we could use.

It’s strange for a travel magazine to discourage people from taking a trip, but that’s the effect of Condé Nast Traveler‘s grim rundown on airline safety after the horrific crash in Brazil. The takeaway is that there are a bunch of ragtag airlines in places like Africa, Russia and the Middle East with scary safety records. Next, there’s advice on making holiday travel less stressful that has us dreading Christmas before we even set foot in the airport.

Travel & Leisure takes the idea of a vacation and turns it on its head by offering ideas that are less about you basking in luxury and more about doing your part to make the world a better place. For example, the magazine serves up 20 trips on which you can do everything from teaching Guatemalan children how to read to protecting manatees in the Bahamas. T&L also provides a list of its top 15 green hotels.

Even using cheap travel tricks may not be enough to stop the weak dollar from bogging down holiday travel plans abroad. Budget Travel feels your pocketbook pain and offers an array of travel deals, such as 50 charming hotels under $150 a night located in places where the greenback still holds its own, like Morocco, Tanzania and Vietnam.

This week’s issue is The New Yorker at its most New Yorkerish. There is no one story that grips you, but instead we get a series of portraits of unique souls and the way they relate to the world. One piece looks at Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson, who popularized seaborne confrontations with whalers, and another at comic Steve Coogan, the British Larry David.

This is the finest issue of New York we have seen in many a moon. The magazine takes a fascinating look at one of the largest insider-trading rings since the 1980s and has an in-depth look at the baffling events that have befallen former Times scribe Kurt Eichenwald since he published an otherwise brilliant piece of reporting on the child porn business.

Time‘s cover on the devastating California fires is really just a leaping-off point for an environmental semi-doomsday scenario. Stick to the reporting, is our advice. That said, the book features some fine reporting about the science of a wildfire – to say nothing of the emotional toll – and is replete with brilliant graphics.

Newsweek fronts an investigative piece on the growing prevalence of food allergies. This counter-intuitive approach is commendable: The California fires were given saturation coverage all week, and this is an interesting look at why so many kids are having serious reactions to the most basic foods. There is a decent look at the new sanctions levied against Tehran.