Gentle joy . . .

‘My reason for writing is that today we listened to your new podcast as we drove to pick up our son from university. I listen to quite a few of these and they vary from fascinating to self-indulgent. What you have done is a very difficult thing to do and is hardly ever done as well as your podcast does it – to represent and bring to life in a new medium the experience you give your subscribers through the quarterly. The whole feeling of gentle joy we get from discovering new books and authors and being reminded of old favourites was there as was so much else we get from your quarterly and what it opens up. Thank you and keep them coming.’ M. and R. Levy, Somerset 
M. and R. Levy, Somerset 
  • Episode 47: Aspects of Orwell
    15 October 2023

    Episode 47: Aspects of Orwell

    D. J. Taylor, literary critic, novelist and Whitbread Prize-winning author of the definitive Orwell: The Life (2003) and its highly acclaimed sequel The New Life (2023), and Masha Karp, Orwell scholar, former Russian features editor at the BBC World Service…
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  • Episode 35: Decline and Fall: A Literary Guide
    15 September 2021

    Episode 35: Decline and Fall: A Literary Guide

    The Dark Ages, Late Antiquity, the late Roman . . . however you define the years spanning the fall of Rome, the period is rich in stories, real or reimagined. In this episode Dr Andy Merrills, Associate Professor of Ancient History, joins the Slightly Foxed team to cast light on the surviving literature. We begin with Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire before delving into 4th-century accounts by the Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a spiritual autobiography by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, ecclesiastical chronicles by the Venerable Bede, Gallic tales of Christian miracles and relic-looting with Gregory of Tours and an alternative look at the period with the modern-day master of Late Antiquity, Peter Brown. From there we venture into fiction with Rosemary Sutcliff’s adventures inspired by archaeological finds, a retelling of the old British folk ballad ‘The Twa Sisters’ in Lucy Holland’s Sistersong and much more besides . . .
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‘Gentle joy . . . ’

M. and R. Levy, Somerset


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