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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Greetings from Hoxton Square where once again we’re sharing a free article from Slightly Foxed to complement a weekend of good reading. The magazine’s archive now stretches to almost 17 years’ worth of issues and over 1000 articles, all of which are available in print and on our website. This week we have combed through our back issues to bring you a piece by John le Carré’s biographer Adam Sisman on a spy fiction classic, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Shepherds’ Lives | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Shepherds’ Lives | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Greetings from Hoxton Square where, following the dispatch of our autumn publications to readers around the world, our thoughts are beginning to turn to woolens, fireside nooks and making our way through the toppling piles of books we’ve selected from a bumper crop of recent titles. One of these books is James Rebanks’s new offering, English Pastoral, a history of the Lake District farm he inherited and how the land has changed over three generations. Reading of farm life in the northern fells prompted us to revisit Ursula Buchan’s article from Slightly Foxed Issue 53, which takes us back to James Rebanks’s first book, The Shepherd’s Life, and to W. H. Hudson’s A Shepherd’s Life, the book which ‘turned the young Rebanks into a reader’.
Hons and Rebels | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Hons and Rebels | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Introducing the newest addition to the Slightly Foxed bookshelves: SF Edition No. 52, Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels. ‘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 this 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.
‘One of the very best moments of each new season: when Slightly Foxed arrives’

‘One of the very best moments of each new season: when Slightly Foxed arrives’

We’re delighted to report that the Autumn issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 67) has left the printing press at Smith Settle. With it, as usual, you’ll find a copy of our latest Readers’ Catalogue, detailing new editions, our backlist, books featured in the latest issue of the quarterly, a selection of literary goods and other offers and bundles. We do hope you’ll enjoy the new issue of the quarterly, wherever in the world you are.
The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley

The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley

‘“It was Uncle who was your father,” she said.’ So begins SF Edition No. 33: The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley, Diana Petre’s utterly unselfpitying and often very funny account of what must be one of the oddest childhoods on record. Diana and her twin sisters were abandoned in 1912 by their mother, the enigmatic Mrs Muriel Perry, whose real name and true identity were a mystery. After an absence of ten years, Muriel reappeared and took charge of her children, with disastrous results. For the girls, one of the highlights of their isolated lives were visits from a kindly man they knew as ‘Uncle Bodger’. In fact, as Muriel finally revealed, he was their father, Roger Ackerley.
J is for Juster, Norton | From the Slightly Foxed archives

J is for Juster, Norton | From the Slightly Foxed archives

‘If a rainbow ever fell to earth and became a book it would be The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) by Norton Juster. It is a thing of light, and wonder, and beauty.’ In this week’s free article from the archives, we welcome you to Dictionopolis, the realm of words ruled by King Azaz in Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. You’ll find an extract in the newsletter, together with a link to read the full article by Rohan Candappa from Slightly Foxed Issue 29. We do hope you enjoy travelling beyond the tollbooth.
The Last Enemy | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

The Last Enemy | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary is one of the great classic memoirs of the Second World War. Hillary was a charming, good-looking and rather arrogant young man, fresh from public school and Oxford, when, like many of his friends, he abandoned university to train as a pilot on the outbreak of war in 1939. At the flying training school, meeting men who hadn’t enjoyed the same gilded youth as he had, his view of the world, and of himself, began to change. Shot down in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, he suffered terrible burns and was treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe. During those brief and gruelling wartime months this once privileged young man was forced to grow up as he struggled to come to terms with his defacing injuries and mourned the loss of his friends
My Grandfather & Father, Dear Father | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

My Grandfather & Father, Dear Father | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

We’ve been browsing our backlist of cloth-bound classics and thought it timely to open the covers of Denis Constanduros’s charming memoirs, My Grandfather and Father, Dear Father, published together in a handsome Slightly Foxed Edition. These delightfully funny and affectionate portraits of the most influential male figures in the author’s life conjure up two strongly defined characters and the times in which they lived.
The Empress of Ireland | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

The Empress of Ireland | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

We’re delighted to share news of the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 51: The Empress of Ireland by Christopher Robbins. The subtitle to this delicious book is ‘A Chronicle of an Unusual Friendship’, and it would indeed be difficult to imagine two more unlikely companions than its author and his subject, the 80-year-old gay Irish film-maker Brian Desmond Hurst. This SF Edition is rolling off the presses at Smith Settle and is published on 1 June, together with the new summer issue and one of our most popular memoirs, Christabel Bielenberg’s The Past Is Myself, which we’re pleased to reissue in a handsome Plain Foxed Edition.

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