The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine.
In this issue: Ates Orga recalls how his father’s Portrait of a Turkish Family came to be written • Allison Pearson meets Mrs Miniver • Annabel Walker eavesdrops on Amos Oz in Jerusalem • Gordon Bowker turns ultramarine • Chris Schüler celebrates the atlas • Marie Forsyth volunteers in a charity bookshop • Derek Parker delights in the letters of Horace Walpole • Oliver Pritchett examines the etiquette of reading in bed . . .
Dreaming of the Bosphorus • ATES ORGA on Irfan Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family
Common Sense Dancing • ALLISON PEARSON on Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Real Mrs Miniver
The Sound of Youth • WILLIAM PALMER on Josef Škvorecký, The Bass Saxophone
A World of Words • ANNABEL WALKER on Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness
Pillow Talk • OLIVER PRITCHETT on reading in bed
Map Magic • C. J. SCHÜLER on The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
The Wild Ginger Man • ANDREW NIXON on J. P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man
With a Notebook and a Ukulele • GORDON BOWKER on the stories of Malcolm Lowry
Putting the Hum into the Humdrum • A. F. HARROLD on the poems of John Hegley
Adventures in Achromatopsia • CATHERINE MERRICK on Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colour-blind
Flashman’s Nemesis • BRIAN PAYNE on George MacDonald Fraser, The Private McAuslan books
Hurricane Clarice • MICHAEL MARETT-CROSBY on the novels of Clarice Lispector
The Man in the Lavender Suit • DEREK PARKER on the letters of Horace Walpole
Of Bembo, Caslon and Clairvaux • ROGER HUDSON on The Folio Society
Talking to the Major • DENNIS BUTTS on the stories of Percy F. Westerman
Wells of Memory • CHRISTIAN TYLER on H. G. Wells, The Complete Short Stories
Shop with a Heart • MARIE FORSYTH on charity bookshops
About Slightly Foxed
The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine. Read more about Slightly Foxed.
- Charity bookshops
- Skvorecký, Josef (Škvorecký)
- Swift, Michael & Konstam, Angus
- Tyler, Christian
- Hudson, Roger
- Walker, Annabel
- Walpole, Horace
- Wells, H. G.
- Westerman, Percy F.
- Konstam, Angus & Swift, Michael
- Reading in bed
- Lispector, Clarice
- The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
- Folio Society, The
- Pirkis, Gail & Wood, Hazel
- Moser, Benjamin
- Hassall, Joan
- Akroyd, Carry
- Bowker, Gordon
- Butts, Dennis
- Crane, Nicholas
- Donleavy, J. P.
- Forsyth, Marie
- Fraser, George MacDonald
- Graham, Ysenda Maxtone
- Lowry, Malcolm
- Harrold, A. F.
- Marett-Crosby, Michael
- Hegley, John
- Merrick, Catherine
- Nixon, Andrew
- Orga, Ates
- Orga, Irfan
- Oz, Amos
- Palmer, William
- Parker, Derek
- Payne, Brian
- Pearson, Allison
- Pritchett, Oliver
- Sacks, Oliver
- Schüler, C. J.
Slightly Foxed Issue 37: From the Editors
We’re now comfortably settled at our new home in Hoxton Square which, being a proper office rather than part of a flat, is far more spacious and functional than Brewhouse Yard. We do miss the...
Read moreHurricane Clarice
The sleeper lounge is old-fashioned British Rail, all tartan carpet, smeared tables and microwave cuisine. Tonight it contains a gathering of solitaries, all of us making separate journeys to London....
Read moreCommon Sense Dancing
She began life as the fictional heroine of a small newspaper column and went on, via American bestsellerdom and a celebrated wartime Hollywood movie, to have the kind of impact on world affairs that...
Read moreDreaming of the Bosphorus
My father Irfan Orga (1908–70) first set foot in England in July 1942, as a staff captain commanding Turkish Air Force pilots completing their training with the RAF. The posting changed his life....
Read moreThe Sound of Youth
It’s odd to recall that until the rock and pop revolution of the early Sixties, most British towns had at least one band, usually consisting of a trumpet and trombone, drummer, bass player and...
Read moreA World of Words
Whether by luck or judgement I don’t now remember, but I first came across the work of Amos Oz in 1984. The occasion was my sole visit to Israel, when I needed a contemporary guide, my only other...
Read morePillow Talk
The etiquette of bedtime reading is such a delicate matter that we must approach it on tiptoe. In fact, before we get to the bed, let us pause and consider the bedside table – or, more accurately,...
Read moreMap Magic
When I worked on a national newspaper, an old, battered copy of The Times Atlas of the World stood propped against the Comment desk. The red cloth binding had come off and the signatures had fallen...
Read moreThe Wild Ginger Man
It was a 1967 Corgi edition of The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy: ‘Complete’ and, most promisingly, ‘Unexpurgated’. Of course I had no inkling then of the tortuous publication saga that lay...
Read moreWith a Notebook and a Ukulele
I first came across Malcolm Lowry through a selection of his poems published in a series devoted mainly to American Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg. But in this slim volume of idiosyncratic verse,...
Read morePutting the Hum into the Humdrum
I first encountered John Hegley in the early ’90s, though only obliquely, via a schoolfriend who was hipper than me and had one of John’s early pamphlets. He showed me a limerick about ‘a...
Read moreAdventures in Achromatopsia
The Island of the Colour-blind was given to me by a friend who was himself red-green colour-blind. This discovery, early in our relationship, illuminated several of his quirks: a terrible dress...
Read moreFlashman’s Nemesis
In Slightly Foxed No.33, Andrew Nixon paid homage to George MacDonald Fraser’s splendid creation, the appalling Flashman; and Patrick Mercer, himself an infantryman, drew attention to Quartered...
Read moreThe Man in the Lavender Suit
I’ve always thought journals and letters among the best of bedside books. The entries, for one thing, are just long enough, usually, to end as drowsiness begins to be irresistible. I first came...
Read moreOf Bembo, Caslon and Clairvaux
The Folio Society was founded 65 years ago and has been gradually undergoing apotheosis into a National Treasure, to join Radio 4, the Proms, Alan Bennett and the London taxi. Like some hound of...
Read moreTalking to the Major
Percy F. Westerman (1876–1959) was one of the most popular writers of boys’ adventure stories from the 1920s to the 1950s. In their brightly coloured dust-jackets his historical tales – books...
Read moreWells of Memory
I don’t remember who gave me the fat red book of short stories by H. G. Wells. But I do remember reading it compulsively as a teenager, with frissons of fear as well as pleasure. Wells was a...
Read moreShop with a Heart
Every Friday afternoon I go to work in our local Amnesty secondhand bookshop, and each week I notice a shabby cover of a book entitled If Jesus Came to My House stuck on one of the walls. Few people...
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