I've posted before about international independent magazine symposium Colophon. There's a companion book to the Colophon2007 event, which I've just finished reading, called We Love Magazines. It's worth picking up.
The book is split into two halves: the first part contains chapters on covers, advertising, and developments in design and production; key events in the independent magazine world (like the birth of New York magazine and when Ray Gun used Zapf Dingbats as the font for the body copy of one story); and interviews with the creators of magazine like Coupe, Frame, and this is a magazine.com. The second half is an index of independent magazines worldwide, which also appears updated on the website.
If you're at all interested in magazines beyond the big consumer glossies, take a look. I particularly enjoyed the opening chapter, "The Eternal Spirit of Adventure," written by professor Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni. In it he quotes Amir H Fallah, founder and creative director of Beautiful/Decay, who echos something I've always said I love about working in this industry:
"It's a great feeling to know that the project is ongoing and that you have the freedom to continually refine it. I think that is one of the best things about publishing a magazine. If you make a mistake in one issue, you can fix it in the next."