Press & Reviews | Slightly Foxed

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Press & Reviews

27th September 2022

‘Flora Thompson’s writing excels in her descriptions of nature’

‘Over to Candleford and Candleford Green form the second and third part of the semi-autobiographical account of Flora Thompson’s early experiences in rural Oxfordshire, of which Lark Rise is the first.’

- Bag Full of Books

‘It is a beautiful place to be transported to’

‘Flora is “Laura” in the retelling and with a keen eye for observing nature and beauty, Flora Thompson renders an exacting yet not too sentimental picture of what life was like for the rural poor. Struggling to make ends meet, yet happy in enjoying the simple pleasures of life, Lark Rise is an intimate and detailed social history of life in those times . . . It is a beautiful place to be transported to and though the last page of the book brought tears to my eyes, I will leave it to you, to find out why.’

- Bag Full of Books

14th September 2022

‘As eccentric as any of Lytton Strachey’s Victorians’ | The Best Book Podcasts for Literary Fans

I beg your indulgence for one podcast that is as eccentric as any of Lytton Strachey’s Victorians, a podcast that grew out of a small British literary quarterly . . . The magazine and its podcast focus on the types of British authors and preoccupations that will have you eager to curl up in a club chair with a cuppa and a bikkie, the better to concentrate on narratives about Barbara Pym, Evelyn Waugh, Francis Spufford, unusual bookshops, and more.

- Bethanne Patrick for Pocket Casts

17th December 2021

‘I don’t think Slightly Foxed has ever published a book which is not both beautiful and interesting’

‘This winter they have published two very different books, both completely charming.’

- Jane McMorland Hunter, Hatchards Piccadilly

17th December 2021

‘An exquisite book, Letters to Michael, published by Slightly Foxed’

Between early 1945 and autumn 1947, Charles Phillipson, an illustrator in the publicity department of an electrical company, wrote 150 letters to his young son, Michael – amusing drawings of daily life accompanied by a few cheerful words . . . they have been gathered into an exquisite book, Letters to Michael, published by Slightly Foxed.

- Country Life

22nd November 2021

Best Books of 2021 | Letters to Michael

Marvellously decorated with characterful pen-and-ink drawings, Letters to Michael is testament to a bygone era when snow fell thick, real pennies were squirrelled in plum puddings and letter-writing sketched the true contours of a relationship.

18th November 2021

‘Dear Michael . . . Love, Daddy’ | Letters to Michael

There is a poignant urgency underpinning Phillipson’s letters, his care to underline tricky spellings, his striving to imagine the world through his tiny son’s eyes.

- Iona McLaren, Telegraph

23rd November 2021

‘A must listen for avid readers’

This companion podcast to the excellent quarterly periodical is a must listen for avid readers – and if you haven’t checked out the magazine you should do that too . . . The conversations are warm and illuminating, and guaranteed to add to your ever growing ‘to-read’ pile.

- Laura Davis, Listen Up

18th November 2021

Daily Mail Book of the Week | Letters to Michael

I keep returning to this magical collection, each time with renewed wonder that the letters survived — but also with a strange sadness that these days there is so little inclination to write any letters at all, let alone ones as happy and touching as these.

- Bel Mooney, Daily Mail

4th October 2021

‘Two rich recent discoveries – both published by Slightly Foxed Editions’

The Empress of Ireland is the novelist and screenwriter Christopher Robbins’s account of his friendship with the most successful forgotten Irish film director of all time, Brian Desmond Hurst . . . The book, simply, is a masterpiece, and its neglect is as inexplicable as that of its subject. Still Life by Richard Cobb, first published in 1983, is a memoir of a Tunbridge Wells childhood. Cobb, historian and Francophile, seems to have had a photographic memory, and his memoir is both an uncannily vivid resurrection of past times . . .

- John Banville, Literary Review

A Countryman’s Notebook: Adrian Bell and the Loss of Rural Culture

Adrian Bell, most well-known for Corduroy and his ‘Rural Trilogy’, was a farmer-writer whose work reflects the changes in farming between 1920 and 1980. In the second half of his life, his Countryman’s Notebook essays were his main literary output. From 1950 to 1980 he wrote one each week for East Anglia’s The Eastern Daily Press: nearly 1600 in total.

- Richard Hawking

‘I love the nature writing of BB’

‘I love the nature writing of BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford), who grew up in a vicarage near mine in Northamptonshire, and snap up every copy of Brendon Chase I find in secondhand bookshops.’ From Reverend Richard Coles’s ‘Books that made me’, Guardian

- Reverend Richard Coles

Food in books: Eccles cakes from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee | The Little Library Café

While preparing for a trip to ‘Laurie Lee country’ – the Cotswolds – Kate Young bakes a batch of Eccles cakes, enjoyed by the author in his childhood. We lined up in the cold, not noticing the cold, waiting for…

15th December 2020

‘The funniest book I’ve read this year.’

‘Slightly Foxed is another brilliant imprint, publishing small hardback books from unfairly neglected authors. This year’s finest includes Christopher Robbins’ hilarious The Empress of Ireland, an account of the friendship between an English journalist and Brian Desmond Hurst, a flamboyant film director . . .’

11th November 2020

The shocking story of Charles and Mary Lamb: Slightly Foxed podcast reviewed

This story might have made for lurid telling, but the podcasters let James set it out plainly before interjecting with pertinent questions and steering the discussion to the Lambs’ work. The respectful quietness of Slightly Foxed is one of its virtues. Where other podcasts suffer from a crescendo of competing voices, this is steady and understated and, yes, all the cosier for being so.

Why Ronald Welch’s novels will help your children fall in love with history

Ronald Welch, a tank commander turned schoolmaster, is one of the 20th century’s most underrated children’s writers. Like Hilary Mantel, he understood that what makes a lost epoch stick in your mind is not the dates but the details. His books positively foam with information . . .

- Iona McLaren, Telegraph

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