If you grew up in the 1940s and 1950s anywhere in the English-speaking world where American magazines were more likely to be found than European ones, places where the culture was popular not high, then a pile of the Saturday Evening Post with Norman Rockwell's covers was likely to have been a solace, and an entertainment. In my case it was New Zealand. My wife remembers sharpening her wits on the Post's 'Perfect Squelch' column. I found a pile of Posts in the alcove of the hospital where the shrouds were stored when I had a holiday job as a porter. At home it was airmail copies of the New Statesman and the occasional New Yorker. I was doubtless snobbish, but not to the point of ignoring visual and literary fast food.

LRB 20 January 2011 | PDF Download