I was introduced to the Weekly at the age of 16 by my late, unforgettable high school teacher Ms Gummersheimer, and 23 years on I’m still reading it with the same interest.
I love it because it allows me to learn about scores of countries that I would otherwise be oblivious to. With the Weekly, I can travel to locations that I wouldn’t have a chance to visit, and peer through lives that are hardly portrayed in mainstream media.
I start from the World roundup, and prefer to read a couple of pages every weekday on my way to the office to get my mind off another miserable work day. But I tend to save the Weekly Review for a weekend coffee break, as I wait for those particular friends who are infamously late. From the Archive amuses me since I see how dramatically headlines and perspectives have changed over the years; and sometimes how stubbornly they persist.
The paper has been a faithful companion on disappointing holidays, a compact form of entertainment during flight delays, and a precious solace during the torturous traffic jams of Istanbul.
It also allows me to hang on to the “good old” non-digital days, which were much more gratifying than the hasty flash of online reading.
Thank you so much to the staff and to fellow readers, whose stories shared in this column are every bit as engaging as the rest of the paper.
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