I discovered this wonderful little quarterly last year when I became a member of the Folio Society. One of the perks of membership is the Folio magazine, a small and lavishly illustrated biannual publication with articles on a variety of topics loosely connected the world of Folio, with articles by various authors and contributors. In the first such magazine I received there was an advertisement for Slightly Foxed which so effectively grabbed me that I decided then and there that I needed to order a trial issue. Published in the UK since 2004, the publication itself is really lovely. Just 6 x 8" and printed on good cream-coloured paper with cover illustrations by different artists and charming black and white spot illustrations throughout, it's got everything going for it as far as aesthetics go. But the contents are what keeps you coming back for more. Written by passionate book lovers, most of which are published authors, it contains articles about old favourites from well-known classics to rather obscure, now out of print gems. You might ask why an LTer exposed to a daily dose of reviews by friends and acquaintances would willingly pay for an overseas publication to read yet more reviews about old favourites, but the quality of the articles, which in themselves make for very pleasant reading, and the range of books covered, many of which I would never have heard of otherwise, is reason enough. The kind of little publication that had me brave the claustrophobic feeling induced by my closet-sized bathroom and had me start taking baths again after over 12 years just so I could enjoy the pleasure of a reading session in my minuscule tub.

Issue No. 18 had a lot to keep me gratified with several articles on favourite books and authors, the first of which is "The Sensation of Crossing the Street" with author Sue Gee writing about her first experience reading [Mrs Dalloway] in 1968; another article by ex-foreign correspondent Chris Bird, is about Ryszard Kapuściński's work, a recently discovered an now beloved author—which I should mention I first came across via the Folio Society and a gorgeous edition of Travels with Herodotus—which had me swearing I would eventually read his entire bibliography, or at the very least those books mentioned; The Emperor Shah of Shahs, Another Day of Life, The Soccer War, Imperium and The Shadow of the Sun. But then part of the fun of Slightly Foxed is reading fascinating articles about works I knew little to nothing about and may or may not read someday, with, among others, Memoirs of a Buccaneer: Dampier's New Voyage Round the World, 1697, Ernle Bradford's Ulysses Found, Ludwig Bemelmans's Hotel Splendide and a article about Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, famous in the UK of course, and which gave me a long-time fan's insider perspective.

I could list what the contents of my first trial issue was, but then I might as well just supply a link to the recently published An Index to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly, published this year to mark their 10th anniversary. I'd barely finished reading that first trial issue that I became a subscriber and then set about collecting all the back issues I could get my hands on. These are, wonderfully enough, always available for purchase because kept in print by Slightly Foxed, but also found on the secondary market for the most part, though I'll have to obtain the first three years worth via SF directly as they are almost impossible to find on the net other than at impossibly inflated prices. One of the dangers once one gets addicted to these lovelies though, is that they also publish limited editions of otherwise out of print autobiographies that are imminently collectible, printed on the same creamy paper, in a small pocket-size cloth-bound hardcover format, and once those are sold out, available as equally appealing small paperback issues. I now have a full set of the quarterlies, starting from issue 16 to the latest, issue 41, and a growing collection of their SF editions. I alternate between reading the latest releases and catching up on the back issues, so these are now a permanent fixture in my bathroom. But wherever you end up keeping them in the house, once you start reading this little gem of a publication, odds are you'll want to keep reaching out for them again and again. ( )