Leaf through the pages of this year’s NYRM — yes, print pages, we haven’t gone completely digital yet — and you might think it is our very own Esquire-esque “augmented reality” issue. There’s little gloom, less doom, and no Monsieur Shirky damning us all to careers of hashtags and live-Tweets and Gawker-like snark. You might say we’ve blissfully ignored the realities of layoffs and shutdowns to focus on those few rays of sunshine still left in the magazine world.

And you’d be right. Ish.

See, we here at NYRM love magazines. Love them. The lengthy, nourishing, highfalutin’ New Yorker piece (read on the 1 train with a smug grin and the cover visible)? Love it. The insane outfits worn by “Look Book” fashionistas each week in New York? Lurve them. That Roger Ebert profile? Loved it!

With all that love in our collective hearts, we didn’t want to produce yet another premature obit on the industry. As long as thick, thin, glossy, matte, perfect-bound or saddle-stitched paper publications can be found on newsstands, we want to show them some loving.

And so, the 2010 edition of The New York Review of Magazines is an unabashed celebration of magazines, created by and written for the people who love them. We haven’t completely ignored the backlit new frontier, nor have we glossed over the industry’s prominent woes. For the most part, though, we’re raising our glasses.

We hope you enjoy this (mostly) jolly edition of the NYRM.

— The New York Review of Magazines