When I was a kid in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, I used to head to my grandparents’ coffee table to pour over the latest issue of Life Magazine.
The oversized monthly magazine was the second coming of Life, which began in 1936 by Time Magazine Publisher Henry Luce and wowed Americans by the week with classic photographs, pithy writing and even Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” The title ran out in 1972 but when it came back as a monthly in 1978, my grandparents subscribed.
And I poured over all of it. I might not really have fully understood Time or Newsweek or The New York Times when I was a preteen. But I did love to see the world in the pages of Life. I still remember some of the photos, and I loved reading the Year in Review, too.
Life’s second generation ended in 2000. Now it’s back.
The New York Times reported that Life Magazine would return as a quarterly magazine starting Nov. 23, with what the paper called a mix of photography and long-form journalism from Bedford Media. But this go-round will cost $45 an issue.
That’s a pretty expensive magazine, if you ask me. But it’s so rare to have a folded magazine, new or old, get published, I hope they succeed.
We all need a little Life.
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