“Thomas,” Artemis said. “More Thomas.”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about at first. Then she walked upstairs with her dad following her. She pointed at a pile of magazines with familiar white titles on red backgrounds.

“She’s saying ‘Economist’. She wants to show you more Economists!”

At the time, I was trying to decide whether or not to renew my subscription. It’s just so hard to fit a weekly magazine into my schedule. Yet the Economist keeps coming, each and every week, staring at me with its big, white letters as if to say, “Don’t you care what’s going on in Zimbabwe? In Malaysia? In Spain? Don’t pretend you’ll find out on NPR because you won’t. Not with the depth that I have!”

I once saw a documentary in which Noam Chomsky showed off all the periodicals he reads every day. There were stacks of them from all over the world. And yet he finds time to write books every year and presumably read a bunch of them, too.

I bet Noam Chomsky doesn’t watch much TV. I am sure I could get through that article about the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka if I didn’t fell the need to watch The Office, 30 Rock and Battlestar Galactica. But would it be worth it?

In the end, I decided to renew my subscription even though I do a poor job of reading the magazine. The Economist offers the full text of all articles in mp3 format to subscribers. My plan is to listen while I walk to work and then read the print edition over lunch.

Then I will bring it home to my nineteen-month-old since she has taken such an interest.

I wonder how she would like a subscription to the New Yorker.