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‘Slightly Foxed is a perfect readers’ periodical . . .’ | Spring Sale

‘Slightly Foxed is a perfect readers’ periodical . . .’ | Spring Sale

Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we’re rolling up our sleeves to spring clean the office in readiness for the arrival of an abundance of spring publications in a few weeks’ time. As delightful as it is to receive each quarter’s delivery, it often means that we have to get rather creative in order to make space for our new additions while they wait to be shipped off to readers around the world. If you’d like to help us clear a few shelves and take the opportunity to fill any gaps in your Slightly Foxed collection, now is the time.
Adrian Bell | A Countryman’s Spring Notebook

Adrian Bell | A Countryman’s Spring Notebook

We’re delighted to bring you news of a Slightly Foxed special release: Adrian Bell, A Countryman’s Spring Notebook Another treat for lovers of Adrian Bell to put alongside A Countryman’s Winter Notebook, which we published in 2021. A Countryman’s Spring Notebook is our second seasonal selection from the weekly column Bell wrote from 1950 to 1980 for the Eastern Daily Press and catches beautifully the arrival of Spring in the East Anglian landscape he loved and knew so well. Each essay is a little masterpiece, a fleeting moment captured with a painterly eye and the down-to-earth observation of the farmer Bell became after he left his fashionable life in Chelsea shortly after the First World War – an experience which produced his much-loved farming trilogy, Corduroy, Silver Ley and The Cherry Tree.
Giving up the Ghost | Part One: A Second Home

Giving up the Ghost | Part One: A Second Home

It is a Saturday, late July, 2000; we are in Reepham, Norfolk, at Owl Cottage. There’s something we have to do today, but we are trying to postpone it. We need to go across the road to see Mr Ewing; we need to ask for a valuation, and see what they think of our chances of selling. Ewing’s are the local firm, and it was they who sold us the house, seven years ago. As the morning wears on we move around each other silently, avoiding conversation. The decision’s made. There’s no more to discuss. About eleven o’clock, I see a flickering on the staircase. The air is still; then it moves. I raise my head. The air is still again. I know it is my stepfather’s ghost coming down. Or, to put it in a way acceptable to most people, I ‘know’ it is my stepfather’s ghost. I am not perturbed. I am used to ‘seeing’ things that aren’t there. Or – to put it in a way more acceptable to me – I am used to seeing things that ‘aren’t there’. It was in this house that I last saw my stepfather Jack, in the early months of 1995: alive, in his garments of human flesh. Many times since then I have acknowledged him on the stairs.
Hens, Hons and Counter-Hons | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Hens, Hons and Counter-Hons | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

‘It was becoming rather apparent by this year of 1935 that not all of us were turning out quite according to plan,’ writes Jessica Mitford in her brilliantly funny and perceptive account of growing up as the fifth of the six notoriously headstrong Mitford sisters. And it was perhaps Jessica – always known as Decca – the lifelong hard-line socialist, who turned out least ‘according to plan’ of them all. We hope you enjoy reading an extract from Slightly Foxed Edition No. 52: Hons and Rebels.
Season’s Greetings from Slightly Foxed

Season’s Greetings from Slightly Foxed

Season’s greetings to you all from SF HQ, where we’re merrily stock-taking and tidying, eyeing up the mince pies and preparing to shut up shop for the Christmas break. The office will be closed from 3 p.m. this afternoon (Thursday 22 December) until Tuesday 3 January. We are so grateful for your orders, and we do hope that all items are well received. While most things arrive in good time and in good order, inevitably the odd thing goes astray or arrives in less than perfect condition. If this is the case please let us know by email and we can arrange replacements to be sent out in the New Year. We look forward to catching up with you when we’re back at our desks in January. Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm throughout the year. We’ll now raise a glass to our dear readers around the world who have kept us going with orders and messages of goodwill.
Last orders, please | Books, goods & gifts from Slightly Foxed

Last orders, please | Books, goods & gifts from Slightly Foxed

Warm wishes from the Slightly Foxed office, where the final post bags are filling up and we’re readying ourselves to wave goodbye to the postman and his laden van for the last time in 2022 later this week. Wednesday 21 December is the last advised posting date for Special Delivery mail to arrive at destinations in the UK by Christmas. Please do place any last orders for Christmas – or for any other occasion before the end of the year – as soon as possible, making sure to select First Class or Next Day Delivery as your postal option on the website or over the phone. Everything that’s published and produced by Slightly Foxed, and marked as in stock on the website, is readily available here in the office and can be dispatched post-haste!
Hons and Rebels | The Society of Hons

Hons and Rebels | The Society of Hons

Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, into which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the Grown-Ups) and large chunks of the Oxford Book of English Verse. Debo and I organized the Society of Hons, of which she and I were the officers and only members. Proceedings were conducted in Honnish, the official language of the soci­ety, a sort of mixture of North of England and American accents. Contrary to a recent historian’s account of the ori­gin of the Hons, the name derived, not from the fact that Debo and I were Honourables, but from the Hens which played so large a part in our lives. These hens were in fact the mainspring of our personal economy. We kept dozens of them, my mother supplying their food and in turn buying the eggs from us – a sort of benevolent variation of the share-cropping system. (The H of Hon, of course, is pro­nounced, as in Hen.)
Literary Gifts & Fantastic Foxes | From the Slightly Foxed Emporium

Literary Gifts & Fantastic Foxes | From the Slightly Foxed Emporium

Greetings from SF HQ, where life may be imitating art as we carry tall towers of books to the packing desk ready to wrap and dispatch to our dear readers. However, rest assured that we’re looking much more cheerful (and being more careful!) than these fully foxed figures in Quentin Blake’s cover artwork for Slightly Foxed Issue 24. And thankfully Dusty the office dog is safely snoozing on the sofa rather than getting under our feet like this book-thieving fox . . . There is still time to add to our packing piles and post bags before the year is out, and you’ll find books and goods, seasonal reads and stocking fillers in our online emporium. And, in honour of SF contributor Quentin Blake turning 90 this Friday, we’re also recommending a selection of pocket-sized titles bearing his fantastic, often foxy, illustrations.
‘Smashing little hardbacks’ | Slightly Foxed Editions

‘Smashing little hardbacks’ | Slightly Foxed Editions

Greetings from a busy, book-filled Slightly Foxed office, where we’re merrily navigating our way through an obstacle course of post bags, packing materials and parcels. There’s still time for us to help with gifts for booklovers, and we’d like to shine a light on our Slightly Foxed Editions – beautifully produced cloth-bound hardbacks, just the right size to hold in the hand and with a ribbon marker to keep your place. And, if you have missed out on a title or two from our series of limited-editions, our Plain Editions come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions and will happily fill any gaps in your collection – as well as forming a delightful uniform series of their own, each bound in duck-egg blue cloth. Perfectly designed to curl up with, these classic titles are highly individual and absorbing reads.
‘Cross every conceivable reader off your Christmas present list’

‘Cross every conceivable reader off your Christmas present list’

Warm wishes from Hoxton Square where we’re a hive of festive activity, packing up great piles of the quarterly magazine, books and goods and sending them out to readers old and new for Christmas (and many other occasions besides). A subscription to Slightly Foxed magazine opens up a whole world of good reading. Companionable, entertaining and elegantly produced, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary review. So whether you’re in search of stimulation, consolation or diversion, a treat for yourself or a present for a bookish loved one, we recommend taking out a subscription to Slightly Foxed – or giving a single issue or one of our books a try.
Delectable Collectable Children’s Books | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Delectable Collectable Children’s Books | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Slightly Foxed Cubs is our series of beautifully produced collectable children’s books. They strike a nostalgic chord with many older readers and introduce a younger generation to writers whose marvellous books have, unaccountably, been allowed to slip out of print. Bound in coloured cloth, with printed endpapers and original illustrations, the Cubs make ideal presents for the young and young at heart. Whether you wish to venture back to Roman Britain with Rosemary Sutcliff, join up the dots of history with Ronald Welch, escape into the wild with BB or build a library for a bookworm by picking a few titles by each author (or collecting the full sets at once) we have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions. And if you continue to scroll, you’ll find recommendations for books beyond the Cubs series too.
A Feast of Literary Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers’ Catalogue

A Feast of Literary Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers’ Catalogue

Warm wishes from SF HQ, where festive spirit is mounting, ribbon is unspooling and post bags are fit to bursting. Parcels are making their way to readers at a great rate and, whether they are literary gifts for a fellow bibliophile or seasonal treats that have caught your eye, we do hope they bring much cheer. Gift ideas for booklovers are bountiful here at Slightly Foxed, and we hope that our Winter Readers’ Catalogue (which includes our pick of books from other publishers’ bookshelves) provides some interesting and unusual present solutions. Or perhaps you may be tempted to stock up on some good reading for yourself. There’s still time to order subscriptions, books and goods to arrive for Christmas.
Seasonal Reading | New this Winter from Slightly Foxed

Seasonal Reading | New this Winter from Slightly Foxed

With Christmas coming and the long dark evenings inviting good reads, Slightly Foxed provides a feast of literary treats . . . Greetings, dear readers. We’re delighted to announce that the new winter issue of Slightly Foxed is being sent out to subscribers this week and should soon begin to land on doormats around the world. We do hope it brings much reading pleasure. There’s certainly still time to order subscriptions, books and goods for Christmas. (Due to one or two planned Royal Mail postal strikes here in the UK, we do recommend you place your order sooner rather than later.) We ship our wares all around the world and we will send out all of your delicious – and most welcome – gift orders over the coming weeks. Everything listed on our website can be sent to you, or directly to a recipient, in good time for a date or occasion of your choice. Slightly Foxed subscribers can use their usual discount on all items, whether they are to be sent to you or to someone else. And the office is well-stocked with smart gift cards bearing wood engravings, reams of brown paper and signature cream foxed ribbon in anticipation.

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I have been devoted to your podcast for over a year; it could be improved only by being more frequent. Every book I have ordered from you has been a delight; nothing disappoints. I receive your emails with pleasure, and that’s saying a lot. Slightly Foxed is a source of content . . . ’
K. Nichols, Washington, USA

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