As evidenced by one of the latest arrivals onto our shelves, there truly is a magazine out there for everyone. The mag is called “Snob” but unless you happen to be familar with the vagaries of the Cyrillic alphabet, you wouldn’t be able to glean that by simply looking at the cover… because, take a deep breath… this is a magazine for Russian oligarchs. Or failing that, the super rich. Or at the very least, super aspirant.

Snob was founded late last year by mining magnate Mikhail Prokhorov, who has an estimated wealth of around $20 billion and is ranked somewhere between 39th and 24th richest man in the world, depending on who you believe.

Like most Russian oligarchs, Prokhorov’s wealth emerged suddenly in the early 90s during the period of rapid and unregulated privatisation of state owned Soviet assets.

The New Yorker says:

It looks looks like a cross between Tatler and The New York Review of Books, printed on the kind of paper stock usually reserved for royal invitations. It features articles by Gary Shteyngart and Salman Rushdie, photography by Ellen von Unwerth and Francesco Carrozzini, and an alarming cover price of eight dollars. It is aimed at international Russians—those successful, educated cosmopolites who might live part of the time in London or New York but who, the folk at Snob like to say, think in Russian.

In truth, it actually looks a bit like a more brightly coloured, slightly more lavish, Russian take on Monocle. This is the second issue that we’ve carried, but I’m not sure we’ve sold a single copy so far, not yet having stores in either Vladivostock or along the French Riveria. Yet.

After trying their hands at a recipe book, a diary and a calendar this year alone, the editors of Frankie magazine have extended their loving touch to ‘Spaces‘, a fantastic new book on interiors.

Packed to the brim with inspirational spaces from London to the Gold Coast, Tokyo to Sydney to Amsterdam and beyond this is truly a gem.

A 256 page book/magazine/’mook’ featuring ‘the homes, studios, shops and cafes of graphic designers, photographers, vintage collectors and shop owners’ it’s like Apartamento meets The Selby, but in a quintessentially Frankie style.

Inside, you’ll get to take a peak at the Brooklyn offices of Etsy, the studios of fashion label Limedrop, a look inside the various studios that are the Nicholas Building in Melbourne’s CBD (including the studios of one-time contributors to this blog, Tin&Ed), the house of blogger Cathy Callahan, an amazing Amsterdam houseboat and many more.

Presented in an oversized format and printed on luscious, grainy paper this is an absolute steal at $22.95 in-store (and $35.95 online, including postage to anywhere in Australia.)

C’est magnifique!

Try as we might, staying abreast of all of the great new magazines coming out each month is a quixotic venture. There’s simply way too many great mags, spanning such a broad range of interests for our tiny number of staff to keep track of while still having time to sleep and maintain a passable level of hygiene.

It is for that reason that we’re really fortunate to have an incredibly passionate and vocal group of customers, who’ll always let us know what mags that they’re excited about.

When we started to hear online buzz about Anthology Magazine a couple of months ago (long before the first issue had even gone to print!), we knew this was going to be something interesting. In their words, Anthology is:

A new quarterly shelter and lifestyle print magazine that takes a narrative approach to its coverage of home décor, travel, design, entertaining, and culture. We envision the magazine as a collection of stories shared with readers.

Anthology HQ has just got their copies back from the printer and our shipment is in the post.

So, barring any more freak storms along the Eastern Seaboard we’re expecting copies in around two weeks. Want one posted out to you as soon as they arrive? We’re now taking pre-orders.

Earlier this year we mourned the loss of Grafik magazine, a wonderful design title out of the UK which left a real gap on our shelves after its untimely demise. We were thoroughly excited to read on MagCulture then, that it’s going to be making a return in 2011!

Last night’s twitter rumours are true. Following the magazine’s sudden closure last June, editors Caroline and Angharad have managed to regain ownership of the name and assets of the magazine, and plan to relaunch next year with a shiny new look courtesy of Michael Bojkowski.

We’re keeping a spot warm, somewhere between IDN and Process Journal.

We’ve just received a limited airfreight shipment of issue #2 of The Gentlewoman. If you missed the first issue, then dear reader, allow us to fill you in: this is a women’s magazine from the creators of Fantastic Man and it’s basically everything that we’ve come to love about that particular men’s fashion mag except softer, prettier and with better smelling hair.

Some of the women featured (yes, there’s not so much as a male elbow or little toe anywhere between these 177 pages) include:

Former editor of Paris Vogue, Joan Juliet Buck, Claudia Gonson from The Magnetic Fields, comedian Julia Davis, Yoko Ono, the photographer Inez van Lamsweerde, Ashley Olson, and there’s a fashion shoot with Abby Lee Kershaw among others!

Absolutely essential. Limited copies in all stores now.

As much as High Gear Monthly (okay, that’s not a real title…) would have you believe, a healthy interest in cars doesn’t have to make you a ‘car person’, with a denial of any interests outside the garage. As the first quarterly mag to successfully make car culture as aesthetically pleasing as a Polaroid snap, Carl*s Cars is a Norwegian gem that seeks to use vehicles as a means to make vehicles and culture park parallel. From gloomy underground garages to the scribbles of Justin Timberlake, this boutique mag’s love of people, cars and lifestyle even led the team to the far reaches of Finland, simply to visit some obscure town called Autotehtaankatu. Now that’s dedication to your mufflers.

Edition 27 of this innovative little publication features a great feature profiling the infamous French Citroën “surgeon” Jean Blondeau, a photoshoot in the parking lot of Monte Carlo Casino, and a rather lovely look at the rides of Norwegian psychedelic-rock group Serena Maneesh. According to lead singer Emil Nikolaisen, if the band were indeed a vehicle, they would be some “blurby, slurpy, silver machine on its way down the expressway to your skull.” Wow, both smooth AND creepy. In a fusion of fashion, culture, music, photography, social nuances and… well… cars (obviously), the illusive “Carl” and friends have crafted a wonderfully slick little pageturner that (unsurprisingly) has just about sold out at Mag Nation.

So here’s the clincher. With just ONE copy left in our Melbourne store, we would rather make this fair game than disappoint the masses.

To win the final copy of Carl’s paper drive, simply tell us the craziest thing you’ve ever done in a car. High-speed chases, laundry en route, letterbox baseball- anything remotely ridiculous at 80km/hr could snare you the final copy of Norway’s finest car culture magazine. (Mag Nation edit after a day of reflection… No. We don’t really want to hear about speed or vandalism. Crazy stuff in a car yes, but please ensure it is legal or at least socially responsible. Speed does kill folks). Editor Karl Eirik Haug claims he used his Citroën DS as an office, a bedroom and a “meeting place for independent thinkers” all over Scandinavia. Surely now, you can do better than that. Enter your responses in the comments field below.

NB. Alfa Romeos, keep your tales reasonably clean… we sure won’t publish gear-changing backseat motoring adventures, unless it’s creatively written in haiku.

It has to be said that it’s been a little while between drinks! And by their own admission, Wooden Toy is the world’s only quarterly magazine that only comes out only once a year.

With the most intricate and incredibly detailed illustration and graphic design adorning each page, amazing packaging, absolutely no advertising and all-round attention to detail like no other mag out there… well, it’s little wonder that Wooden Toy takes a little but longer to put together than say, your average issue of Practical Poultry!

Like many of you, we’ve been eagerly awaiting news of the next issue for many months now… and while we’re not sure exactly when it’s going to come out, we do know that it’ll be here sooner rather than later. And from what we’ve seen, it looks like it’s going to be well and truly worth the wait.

Details from the Wooden Toy site:

Can you hear that beat?? Yep, that’s right people, it’s the sound of the Music edition jamming this way. Wooden Toy Quarterly the ‘MUSIC’ edition features interviews and profiles with rocking cover artist Ken Taylor (AUS), Tara McPherson (USA), Mcbess (FRA), Elefant Traks’ Urthboy, Hermitude & Unkle Ho (AUS), Woodstock MC Chip Monk (USA), Tim Minchin (AUS), Wax Tailor (FRA), The Doves (UK), Nine Mile (CAN) plus loads more hidden tracks and samples!

Pre-order your copy now!