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K. Nichols, Washington, USA

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Cellmates

Cellmates

As I remember it, Vole was already up and running when Lewis Thomas arose in our midst like some ecological genie, a combination of gentle evangelist and stand-up comedian. It was 1977, and Richard Boston, founder of the magazine, arrived at an early editorial gathering bearing a copy of Thomas’s book The Lives of a Cell, with the clear message that it was required reading. It had recently been awarded, unprecedentedly, two US National Book Awards, one in the Arts category, the other in Science, and been described in The New Yorker as a ‘shimmering vision’.
SF magazine subscribers only
1st September 2004

Slightly Foxed Issue 3: From the Editors

Since Slightly Foxed was launched, its office has been comfortably sited in Canonbury, a quiet part of North London with leafy roads and literary associations: George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, Louis MacNeice and Nancy Mitford are just a few of the writers who have lived in its Georgian and early Victorian houses – usually during periods when they were somewhat down on their luck. Since then Canonbury has come up in the world, but there are still many writers living nearby.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
24th February 2019

‘I have just finished A House in Flanders by Michael Jenkins . . . ’

‘I have just finished A House in Flanders by Michael Jenkins. I bought it from you a couple of weeks ago and have cherished every single page from the start. It is a charming, evocative and wistful narrative, forming such a well of sympathy with the characters that I was quite unnerved at the end with Tante Yvonne’s demise. Books like this create strong and memorable images in mind and memory, evoking yearnings and emotions. It’s been a wonderful few days sinking into this beautiful little book and being cosseted with each turn of the page. This the third SFP book I own. In themselves, they are a perfect shape and size. Design and layout are excellent, illustrations delightful. It’s a joy simply to look at them with their neat little format and eye-soothing cream colour.’
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From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || Country Boy

From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || Country Boy

We’re down to our last binders’ parcel of Slightly Foxed Edition No. 22, Country Boy. Richard Hillyer was the pseudonym used by Charles Stranks, a farmworker’s son who grew up in great poverty in a remote Buckinghamshire village in the years before the First World War. Hillyer describes how, against all the odds, he discovers a love of reading, manages to educate himself and get to university. Country Boy has been a firm favourite with readers over the years, and copies of our handsome edition have been steadily slipping off the shelves without fanfare. Now, as it nears the end of its time on the SF list, we thought we’d send if off in style with an extract . . .

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