Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #34 in Magazine Subscriptions
- Formats: Magazine Subscription, Print
Product Description
For the record: Mental Floss magazine is an intelligent read, but not too intelligent. We're the sort of intelligent that you hang out with for a while, enjoy our company, laugh a little, smile a lot and then we part ways. Great times. And you only realize how much you learned from us after a little while. Like a couple days later when you're impressing your friends with all these intriguing facts and things you picked up from us, and they ask you how you know so much, and you think back on that great afternoon you spent with us and you smile.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
671 of 706 people found the following review helpful.
The Best New Magazine
By William Irwin
In an age of books "for dummies" and "complete idiots," Mental Floss is a magazine that makes you "feel smart again." Let's face it, some of those "dummies" books are pretty good, but you wouldn't display them in your home or read them on the train. By contrast, I openly read Mental Floss in public and place the latest issue on my coffee table.The magazine combines a cheeky sense of humor with a wealth of information. I loved the recent "Y Files issue." "Why is yawning contagious?" "Why do people yell `Geronimo' before jumping?" "Why does the United States print $2 bills?" Mental Floss delivers the answers. Trivial pursuit may leave you wondering "why" about an answer, but Mental Floss never does.
The current "swimsuit issue" is a blast. It's not exactly titillating, but it is stimulating. The sight of Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt in swimwear is enough to turn your attention to the articles.
There's no magazine I'd recommend more highly.
317 of 339 people found the following review helpful.
The Best Thing In My Mailbox!
By Robert I. Hedges
I have subscribed to "Mental Floss" from the very beginning, and now look forward to each new issue anxiously. Founded just a couple of years ago by two former college roommates who wanted a fun, hip, urbane magazine to make them smarter with style, "Mental Floss" has become a huge success, and is one of the few new magazines that debut each year that is actually prospering.
Each issue is loaded with information on interesting topics, from how common (or very uncommon) things work, to odd and unknown histories and biographies that you will not find anywhere else (and if you did, certainly not in as condensed and succinct a form as you will find here.) Without exception, the writers are literate, knowledgeable, and good humored.
The things that you don't know will amaze you after reading this magazine. Try "Mental Floss", and I am willing to bet that you will be hooked. I know I am.
94 of 98 people found the following review helpful.
Quick mental jolts to keep your brain entertained
By Lisa Shea
There are magazines you read for specific how-to texts, like how to fix your kitchen sink. There are magazines you read to stay up to date with the latest news in the world, your field, or a given region. Then there are magazines like Mental_Floss, which is more like a "News of the Weird" magazine version release. These aren't brain puzzles to improve your memory a la Brain Age. They aren't research pieces that will test or challenge your mental ability. Instead, they are quirky factoids.What is yelling "Geronimo" all about? Just what is a "Vegemite Sandwich"? There are all sorts of odd things covered here. Sometimes they touch on science, world politics or human relations - but often they're related to pop culture, the things you hear every day and never really thought about.It's intriguing that how you react to this magazine is probably based a lot on what you have read until now. If what you've been reading has been mainstream newspapers aimed at the "lowest common denominator", or the Dummies series of books, you'll be greatly refreshed by this! This magazine doesn't assume you're a dummy with a dead brain. It assumes you want to learn, to grow, to find out the "why" behind the things in your world. It's aimed for people who pop onto Wikipedia when they hear about a new, interesting item on the news ... or people who jump onto IMDB to see what else an actor was in when they watch a movie. It's for people who are intrigued by those connections and backgrounds.On the other hand, Mental_Floss generally provides a surface read. It's the perfect bathroom magazine - but for those who already get mentally challenging magazines, they might be let down by a magazine that is explicitly named Mental_Floss. This doesn't provide in depth or rigorous details on anything. If the academic magazines are at college level, Mental_Floss is more like the fun high school underground newsletter that tackles intriguing issues that might otherwise be ignored. Now, before you start to clamor that most newspapers write at a 5th grade level, that is in fact untrue! Here's a factoid for you :) The New York Times writes at a 12th grade level of vocabulary and comprehension, while most other newspapers fall between 9th and 10th grade. The 5th grade stat came from the 1700s and 1800s.Still, every magazine has its target audience and its purpose in life. Mental_Floss isn't there to provide in depth education. There are other magazines for that. Instead, it gives you great tidbits on things that many people care about - things that are *super* to use at cocktail parties, networking events, dinners out with your boss or employees. Instead of getting into a discussion about religion or politics, and perhaps starting the third world war, you can give info on a topic that will intrigue most people there, and often impress them.Definitely a magazine that just about every age group will enjoy - and that is very "useful"! If I have a real issue with this magazine, it's that it only comes out every other month. It'd be great if they could get this onto a monthly schedule, with more intriguing facts to keep us fresh and full of new information.
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Addicting
Relatively okay
Ephemeral and guilty
TV Guide screwed up
