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‘A subscription would make an inspired gift for a hungry reader.’

‘A subscription would make an inspired gift for a hungry reader.’

Greetings from Hoxton Square where we’re busy wrapping and packing great piles of subscriptions and books and sending them out to readers near and far 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. For all gift subscriptions, we can send out the first issue with a handsome card bearing your gift message. We can send it directly to the recipient or to you to hand over in person, and, if you like, we can wrap the first issue in good brown paper and tie it with our smart foxed ribbon too. 
Beautiful books for the young at heart | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Beautiful books for the young at heart | Slightly Foxed Cubs

‘Thank you very much for publishing Ronald Welch, Rosemary Sutcliff and BB sets. Your editions are a joy to handle and have given me many happy hours.’ W. Smith Reading recommendations and present ideas are in plentiful supply at Slightly Foxed. Today we’re shining the spotlight on our Foxed Cubs series. These beautifully produced collectable children’s books 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, as stand-alone titles or in sets. We have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions.
A Calendar of Covers for 2022

A Calendar of Covers for 2022

‘I love it! I intend to have some of the images framed as I did with the last calendar that I bought from you.’ S. Jackson We’re delighted with the response to our latest calendar – a special celebratory one to mark our 70th issue earlier this year. We’ve just cracked open the last few boxes so if you’ve been thinking about ordering one, you might like to do so fairly soon. It would make a charming present for anyone who loves Slightly Foxed, or indeed for anyone who hasn’t yet come across the magazine. It’s a handsome, spiral-bound decorative wall calendar printed on sturdy paper with a board backing, and features some more of the seasonal Slightly Foxed covers that readers enjoy so much. We feel it will raise the spirits and look good in any room.
Literary Gifts & Seasonal Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers’ Catalogue

Literary Gifts & Seasonal Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers’ Catalogue

Warm wishes from SF HQ. Parcels and packages are flying out from Hoxton Square to readers at a great pace 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 abundant here at Slightly Foxed, and we hope that our online 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 reading for yourself.
A Telegraph Best Book of 2021 | Letters to Michael

A Telegraph Best Book of 2021 | Letters to Michael

We are absolutely delighted to report that copies of our recently published Special Release – Letters to Michael: a father writes to his son 1945–1947 – have been flying out of Foxed HQ to readers around the world this month, many of them gift wrapped in good brown paper with hand-written notes to be opened on Christmas Day. This is thanks, in part, to glowing write-ups by Bel Mooney for the Daily Mail and Iona McLaren for the Telegraph a few weeks ago, and inclusion in a round-up of the very best books for 2021 by Telegraph critics this weekend. Thanks too to our bookselling friends at Daunt, John Sandoe, Hatchards and to many other wonderful independent shopkeepers up and down the country who have been creating delicious-looking displays featuring the book, pressing it into the hands of customers and selecting it for their seasonal catalogues.
Winter Reading | New from Slightly Foxed

Winter Reading | New from Slightly Foxed

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. And for those of you who are on a repeat order to receive each limited-edition memoir each quarter, your usual hand-numbered copy of The Wine Lover’s Daughter by Anne Fadiman will be with you very soon. There’s still plenty of time to order subscriptions, books and goods in time for Christmas. We ship our wares all around the world and we will send out all of your delicious (and most welcome) gift orders over the next few weeks. The office is well-stocked with smart gift cards bearing wood engravings, reams of brown paper and signature cream foxed ribbon in anticipation.
Letters to Michael: a father writes to his son 1945–1947

Letters to Michael: a father writes to his son 1945–1947

‘My dear Michael, Mummy and I are very pleased that you are now able to read books for yourself . . . As you grow older you will find that good books can be some of your best friends . . . Much love from Daddy’ It is 16 January 1947 and, as he does most days, Charles Phillipson has taken up his fountain pen to write to his young son Michael. Before Michael started school in 1944 Charles had already made him a book of playful drawings of the alphabet to encourage his reading. From early 1945 to the autumn of 1947 a sequence of 150 illustrated letters followed in which Charles captures the delight to be found in the mundane detail of everyday life, seen through the lens of his own quirky imagination. Now these letters have been gathered together in a handsome cloth-bound hardback edition. Letters to Michael presents a touching portrait of the relationship between a father and his son and captures a bygone age when people still wrote letters using pen and paper. Altogether, this charming book is an antidote to troubled times and would make a perfect present.
‘Slightly Foxed is a very civilized way to appreciate books and writers.’

‘Slightly Foxed is a very civilized way to appreciate books and writers.’

‘Slightly Foxed is a very civilized way to appreciate books and writers. No shouting, no hype, just beautifully presented enthusiasms, most of which are irresistible.’ Michael Palin Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we’re sending books and copies of the magazine to readers as quickly as we’re receiving deliveries of top-up stock and freshly printed titles from Smith Settle in anticipation of the coming season. A particular high point in the calendar will be our forthcoming Readers’ Day, on Saturday 6 November. We’re delighted to report that Michael Palin will be among the excellent contributors speaking at our usual London haunt, the Art Workers’ Guild in Queen Square. There’ll be a reduced audience for this year’s event to allow for social distancing. If you would like to join us, we advise booking now to avoid disappointment.
Adrian Bell | A Countryman’s Winter Notebook

Adrian Bell | A Countryman’s Winter Notebook

We’re delighted to bring you news of a Slightly Foxed special release: Adrian Bell, A Countryman’s Winter Notebook. ‘Bell writes always of the ordinary things, of the seasons, of memories, of rain and laughter. Gentleness fits him naturally, just as the purity of his words opens our eyes to a life all around us which we might otherwise never have seen.’ So wrote the journalist Clement Court of his contemporary, the farmer-cum-writer Adrian Bell, best known for his rural trilogy, Corduroy, Silver Ley and The Cherry Tree, which vividly describe a time before machinery took over much of the work of men and beasts, altering the landscape and the face of farming forever. In addition to the books that followed his famous trilogy, from 1950 to 1980 Bell wrote a weekly column called ‘A Countryman’s Notebook’ for Suffolk and Norfolk’s long-serving local paper, the Eastern Daily Press. His columns were, as his son Martin Bell says in his preface, ‘not really journalism but prose poems about the natural life around him’, and these essays share that which is common to all his writing – a deep appreciation of the small moments of each passing day. Now a selection of these beautifully crafted essays has been gathered together and introduced by Richard Hawking to form the first, we hope, of a quartet of Bell’s writings on the seasons.
A Celebration of Slightly Foxed Readers

A Celebration of Slightly Foxed Readers

‘I have been a subscriber from the off, and I read every issue with pleasure. But I have to tell you that No. 71 is the best ever. The writing it contains is superb.’ Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we’re in very good spirits and wish to share some cheering news with our readers. This quarter we’re celebrating a new high: a first print-run of 10,000 issues of the new issue of Slightly Foxed magazine. As most of you will know, we regularly reprint our back issues so, over time, each issue has sold thousands of copies. But now, for the first time, we’re up to 10,000 for the first run of an issue, which feels momentous to a small publisher like us and it’s all thanks to you, our readers.
A Cab at the Door | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

A Cab at the Door | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

For those of you who have yet to add V. S. Pritchett’s classic memoir to your Slightly Foxed collection, we’re pleased to bring news of our featured autumn read. The writer V. S. Pritchett’s mother was an irrepressible cockney, his father a reckless, over-optimistic peacock of a man, always embarking on new business ventures which inevitably crashed – hence the ‘cab at the door’ waiting to bear the family quietly away from yet another set of creditors. In this vigorous and original memoir Pritchett captures the smells, sounds and voices of London in the first decades of the 20th century, and the cast of Dickensian characters among whom he grew up.
U is for Uhlman, Fred | From the Slightly Foxed archives

U is for Uhlman, Fred | From the Slightly Foxed archives

‘Hooked, I read straight through to the end, with its startling twist. (Warning: resist the urge to take a premature peek.)’ Martin Sorrell, SF Issue 69 Greetings from Slightly Foxed, where we’ve made great strides through the A-Z of the magazine’s archives and selected another article for everyone to read for free. Many of you were prompted to add Reunion by Fred Uhlman to your reading list following Martin Sorrell’s heartfelt recommendation in Issue 69 of the magazine. Such was the spike of interest in this novella, the publisher’s stocks were entirely depleted. However, we’re pleased to report that it’s available to order again. Perhaps you’ll be tempted to make a slim space on your bookshelves for this edition after reading Martin’s review.
Sword of Bone | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Sword of Bone | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Our series of Slightly Foxed Editions are all absorbing reads – hitherto forgotten memoirs that bring alive a particular moment, that allow you into someone else’s world and make you feel you have actually known the writer. Often these books light up a period in a way no history book can. And that is what Anthony Rhodes has done in Sword of Bone, his wry account of the events leading up to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in May 1940 – a ‘strategic withdrawal according to plan’ as the chaos was officially described. He manages to capture the absurdity as well as the tragedy of what took place in Dunkirk. For all its humour, Sword of Bone is a penetrating comment on the cruelty of war.
‘Slightly Foxed is my little piece of heaven every quarter’ | New this autumn

‘Slightly Foxed is my little piece of heaven every quarter’ | New this autumn

The new Autumn issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 71) has now left the printing press at Smith Settle and will start to arrive with readers in the UK very soon and elsewhere over the next few weeks. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner:  Margaret Drabble admires Doris Lessing • Andrew Joynes receives divine inspiration from William Golding • Olivia Potts has plenty to say about Mary Wesley • John Smart dreams of cheese • Clarissa Burden falls for Josephine Tey’s Inspector Grant • Frances Donnelly visits Hotel du Lac with Anita Brookner • Ken Haigh make his case for The Hobbit, and much more besides . . . With it, as usual, you’ll find a copy of our latest Readers’ Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, selected seasonal reading and other offers and bundles. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this autumn.

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