What is the subject "Nothing" or "Books and magazines"? What should we use here singular or plural?
If change the position of "but", then would it change the grammar of sentence or it doesn't make any difference?
I have same confusion with "all but", "everything but", "anything but".
"But" in your sentence is used as a preposition that means "except (for)" and "but books and magazines" is a prepositional phrases which doesn't have any influence on the singularity of a subject. If you omit it, the sentence is changed to:
Nothing pleases her.
You can also rephrase the sentence to:
Nothing pleases her but books and magazines.
It is grammatical for to please to agree with the singular "nothing" as nothing is singular.
When "nothing but" is replaced by "only" as in:
Only books and magazines please her.
to please has to agree with the plural subjects.
Now, whether to use "pleases" or "please" in your sentence could be controversial and I don't think it is an easy issue to determine. However, grammatically and formally, using the singular agreement is right. Using "please" could be more informal or colloquial. It will largely depend on where you place the emphasis.
From all indefinite pronouns, only both, few, many, others, and several are plural.
As for nothing, according to the traditional rule, it is invariably treated as a singular, even when followed by an exception phrase containing a plural noun:
Nothing except your fears stands (not stand) in your way.
Nothing but roses meets (not meet) the eye.
The source:The American Heritage Book of English Usage.
BUT there are certain contexts in which nothing but sounds quite natural with a plural verb and should not be considered inappropriate, especially when the intent is to emphasize equivalence with the subject, even when plural.
The examples from the original source:
Years of selective breeding have produced turkeys that are nothing but cooking pouches with legs (Garrison Keillor, "With All the Trimmings," Time)
Angels on horseback were nothing but oysters wrapped in thin rashers of bacon, fried and served hot on buttered toast (Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Cure for Death)
Nonetheless, the prevailing pattern is for nothing but and similar constructions to get singular verbs, even when emphasizing plural entities.
