For as long as I’ve lived in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood -- more than 15 years -- I’ve enjoyed the benefits of City Newsstand. As a store employee explains in a cool video about the store, just about every magazine you can think of is on display -- including Architectural Digest, Land and Farm Bulletin, Fortean Times and more than one magazine entirely devoted to pens.

I especially like City Newsstand’s collection of railroad-related titles.

This past weekend, I had to go to Sears to buy some bath towels, so I dropped in at City Newsstand and bought a number of great magazines, including:

Monitoring Times -- Devoted to the world of radio communications. I was especially intrigued by an article on a mysterious digital pulser signal.

Tiki Magazine -- One-stop shopping for anything related to tiki culture, such as music, island clothes, cocktails and reviews of nightspots like Trader Vic's. Great artwork in this mag.

Trains Magazine -- From the folks at Kalmbach Publishing, here're photos and text guaranteed to get any railfan foaming.

Books on my plate at the moment include:

"Ask Papa Jack: Wisdom of the World's Oldest CEO" -- The life and times of Jack Weil, late great patriarch of Denver's Rockmount Ranch Wear.

"Super Chief and El Capitan, 1936-1971" -- Patrick Dorin documents the glory days of the Santa Fe Railway and its streamliners.

"Eyewitness to the Old West: Firsthand Accounts of Exploration, Adventure, and Peril" -- Richard Scott, a professor at my alma mater of Metropolitan State College, presents the taming of the West through letters, newspaper accounts, diaries and photographs.

"The Divorce Seekers: A Photo Memoir of a Nevada Dude Wrangler" -- William and Sandra McGee deliver a great slice of a bygone era when people from across the United States traveled to Nevada to establish quickie residency and split the sheets. William was a “dude wrangler” at one of these ranches.

So, what are you reading?

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