Shelf Life: Wits and Witches

THE book of the season is also a Book of the Future. The Complete New Yorker (Random House, 123 pp., $100), true to its name, is an eight-DVD set containing every page of every issue of the 80-year-old magazine. Virtually all of the physical weight of this gift box is accounted for by the accompanying book; the DVDs containing the actual reproduced magazines, all 4,109 issues, can be held easily in the palm of one’s hand. The bittersweet victory over paper-tons and tons of paper, but lovable paper nonetheless-is in sight.

The most daunting question is, Where to start? The search engine is well-organized, by author and subject-so if you want to read, say, any of the 793 stories, essays, and poems written for The New Yorker by John Updike, they will be arranged chronologically for you; the only task remaining is to click the mouse, and occasionally change discs as the search takes you further into the magazine’s past. And there are plenty of Alist authors to choose from, including Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, John Cheever, Vladimir Nabokov, Cynthia Ozick, Dorothy Parker, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

THE book of the season is also a Book of the Future. The Complete New Yorker (Random House, 123 pp., $100), true to its name, is an eight-DVD set containing every page of every issue of the 80-year-old magazine. Virtually all of the physical weight of this gift box is accounted for by the accompanying book; the DVDs containing the actual reproduced magazines, all 4,109 issues, can be held easily in the palm of one’s hand. The bittersweet victory over paper-tons and tons of paper, but lovable paper nonetheless-is in sight.

The most daunting question is, Where to start? The search engine is well-organized, by author and subject-so if you want to read, say, any of the 793 stories, essays, and poems written for The New Yorker by John Updike, they will be arranged chronologically for you; the only task remaining is to click the mouse, and occasionally change discs as the search takes you further into the magazine’s past. And there are plenty of Alist authors to choose from, including Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, John Cheever, Vladimir Nabokov, Cynthia Ozick, Dorothy Parker, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.