We’re delighted to announce that Slightly Foxed are having a party at your excellent local bookshop, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights.

Thursday 14 June 2012, 6.30 – 8.30 pm

Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights
14/15 John Street
Bath BA1 2JL

Please join us to celebrate the launch of the Summer issue of Slightly Foxed and the new Slightly Foxed Edition, No.18, Elspeth Huxley’s The Flame Trees of Thika. There will be wine, nibbles and oodles of books. We very much hope to see you there.

RSVP all@foxedquarterly.com • 020 7549 2121

Speaking of exotic locations, our editor Gail has left Office Dog Chudleigh at the helm for a couple of weeks while she treks in the Nepalese mountains. He was rather hoping to join her, but then concern was raised over his behaviour in the company of mountain goats and Himalayan marmots. We must say we’re jolly glad he’s here though, to keep us under control – as illustrated at the foot of this newsletter . . .

Keep a look out in next month’s newsletter for details on our Summer issue launch on 14th June at the wonderfully quirky Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, and until then why not make the most of this unseasonable weather and curl up with a soothing read.

More . . .

When Elspeth Huxley’s family arrived in the dusty lanes of Nairobi in 1913, British East Africa was still a kind of Garden of Eden, filled with an abundance of wild creatures and virtually untouched by the destructive hand of man. It was also a land of dreams, a place for the recouping of lost fortunes by those who hadn’t managed things very well elsewhere.

Six year-old Elspeth and her parents – whom, in her memoir, she calls Robin and Tilly – were bound for Thika, 500 acres of bush which had been sold to Robin on arrival as ‘the best coffee land in the country’ by Roger Stilbeck, a splendid rogue wearing an Old Etonian tie and a perfectly cut suit.

Like many of those from the ‘Old Country’, Elspeth’s parents were innocents abroad. Gentle and charming Robin, now on his uppers, had ‘unfortunately’ inherited some money and had made a habit of involving himself in schemes that invariably crashed. Tilly, born into an impecunious branch of the Grosvenor family, was forthright and practical. Both were also incurable optimists, dreaming of the prosperous orchards and plantations and the grand stone house they would soon build – though in fact they were to remain for fifteen years in the thatched hut with a beaten earth floor that they had put up immediately they arrived, bizarrely surrounded by odd pieces of fine furniture and other genteel remnants of their comfortable past.

Elspeth Huxley evokes both the harshness and the beauty of the life that, against all the odds, they managed to create, of the mutually dependent society of those early white settlers, and of the effect of Africa and its native people on the imagination of a solitary and self-sufficient small child. The Flame Trees of Thika paints an unforgettably vivid and poignant picture of the forging of a world, and its dissolution in the tragedy of the First World War.

This title is published on 1st June 2012. Please do pre-order now. Copies will be dispatched immediately on publication.

Come to tea with Slightly Foxed at The West Meon Festival of Books. Slightly Foxed will be introducing Maggie Fergusson, award-winning author of George Mackay Brown: The Life, who will be talking about her recently published collaboration with the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Morpurgo, War Child to War Horse.

www.westmeonfestival.co.uk

Later this month, also in the spirit of beautifully produced books, we’ll be co-hosting an event with the Folio Society at our shop on Gloucester Road.  See below for more details, have a lovely April, and thank you, as ever, for your continued support.

More …

Monday 30 April, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Slightly Foxed on Gloucester Road
123 Gloucester Road
London SW7 4TE

RSVP enquiries@foxedbooks.com / 020 7370 3503

Autumn: August – October
Winter: November – January
Spring: February – April
Summer: May – July

Information for Candidates
Our aim is to offer you experience in publishing and the chance to obtain skills and gain confidence. In return we expect hard work, punctuality, cheerfulness, attention to detail, a willingness to turn your hand to anything, enthusiasm and adaptability. You must be computer literate and fluent in English.

During the internship you will be on hand to assist the editorial, publicity and administrative staff. You will be included in our monthly meetings and will be encouraged to take an interest in all aspects of the production of a magazine and books.

Your duties will include the following:

- Banking, photocopying, mailings
- Researching, archiving and proofreading
- Filing, dealing with the post, answering the telephone and taking orders
- Packing and dispatching orders
- Attending SF-related events and providing cover at our Kensington bookshop
- Walking the office dog

The SF office is in Clerkenwell and the nearest tube stations are Farringdon and Old Street. Office hours are 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break.

Employed interns will be paid a salary of £14,560 pro rata (£280 per week) and will be required to sign a contract committing them to working at SF for the 3 month internship period.

Application and Interview Process
Please read the following information before applying.

- The SF internship is a graduate scheme and all studies must be completed before applying
- We are currently accepting applications for our Autumn and Winter 2012 internships-
- The deadline for applications for these two periods is 31st May 2012
- Short-listed candidates will be interviewed in June 2012
- Candidates may be asked to spend a day at SF as part of the selection process
- The application process for Spring and Summer 2013 will open in September 2012

If you would like to apply please email your current c.v. and a covering letter to jenniepaterson@foxedquarterly.com

Slightly Foxed was featured in this weekend’s Telegraph Review magazine. You can read the full article on the Telegraph website here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9134248/Outfoxing-the-digital-revolution.html

A  filmmaker from the Telegraph also travelled up to our printers in Yorkshire to document the making of our new Slightly Foxed Edition. Here’s the delightful short film he created.

Birth of a Book

More . . .

In the Slightly Foxed Spring issue (no. 33), John has written a charming piece on the life and works of twentieth-century poet, philosopher and novelist John Cowper Powys. At Oxford he’ll be shedding further light on this often-overlooked writer. We hope to see you there.

Christ Church: Blue Boar
Saturday 24th March, 4 p.m.
Tickets: £10

Slightly Foxed readers will receive a 10% discount on tickets for this event.  To take advantage of this offer and book tickets, please call the Festival box office on 0870 343 1001 and quote ‘Slightly Foxed’. For more information about the event, please visit the Festival website: www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org

If you’re thinking of visiting Oxford for the festival and wondering where to stay, why not consider bedding down in college for a night or two. There’s no better way to experience life as lived by the dons and students of this centuries-old world-famous university than by staying in an Oxford college room.

For more information please follow this link to the accommodation page on the Festival website: Accommodation . . .