Even if you can only afford the time to read a sporadic issue here or there, this is by far the most gratifying magazine to read.

This is more like an encyclopedia of current events affecting out world than a magazine. The gamut of topics is amazing and can in one article cover a topic with comprehensive, excellent writing. The consistency of quality makes it a number once choice.

It continues to carry the most intriguing articles I have ever read. If you're thinking about a subscription - pick one up at a newstand and revel in the pages of information. Chances are good you'll be so impressed you won't hesitate to indulge in a subscription to satisfy your appetite for more.

I started receiving Smithsonian magazine a few months ago. It was the best choice I could have made in selecting a magazine. I find myself reading the articles out loud to my husband. I want to read every article because I am afraid I am going to miss something. I am saving them so my young son can enjoy them when he is older.

Every issue we get, we say the same thing: "WOW! This is the best issue ever!! Just look at this article, and this one...."

We took a visit to the Smithsonian in Washington, hosting some guests from Germany who had the treasures of the mineral exhibit on their "must see first time to the US" list of attractions. We were a bit nonplussed by this--we didn't know that foreigners would be interested in the Smithsonian Museum. We spent an entire day, seeing just a small percentage of the national treasures in this montsrous museum complex. While we were shopping in one of the gift shops, we were offered a membership. We signed up to support the Smithsonian and to get this magazine.

Recently, there was an article on Cambodia's huge temple complex Ankhor Wat (filmed in "Lara Croft"), an article on sled dogs and an article on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a key law that added to the tinder sparking the Civil War. And best of all, an article on Diane Arbus, the photographer who was famous for her portraits of seemingly ordinary people, somehow caught with an eye to freakishness or evil. Though I've been familiar with Arbus' work for year, this article had so much new information.

If you like magazines about nature, culture and history, this is the one to get. We get excited by every issue.

I always find at least one article in every month's SMITHSONIAN that interests me. From art to history to the sciences, this magazine covers American life, both past and present. Unlike the Smithsonian museums themselves, this is not exclusively an exhibit journal since it takes its readers to unexpected places and topics. A real treat for the broadly curious.

With a subscription, you'll get a membership to the Smithsonian Institute, enabling you to get members' prices out of their catalog and gift shops. Support this uniquely American institution - and learn a lot in the process.

I never know what I'm going to find when I open an issue of Smithsonian, but I always find something intriguing that I would never have learned about in any other way. The depth and breadth of the articles never ceases to astonish me. In what other single magazine could you read about the art of Maxfield Parrish, the history of the calendar, the 13 smallest countries in the world, and see photos of exotic species of chickens? The writing is always intelligent, often witty, and inevitably a pleasure.