Comments on The Bibliophilic Blogger: Slightly Foxed

Well, I love Slightly Foxed, not least for its pro...

2008-06-14T08:45:00.000+01:00

Well, I love Slightly Foxed, not least for its production values - beautiful paper and cover! I can understand what Mark says though, but sometimes its nice to read something slightly less critically.

Always good to be pointed to an article of yours N...

2008-06-12T14:28:00.000+01:00

Always good to be pointed to an article of yours Nick, but I must admit I've always found something off-putting about Slightly Foxed. There always seem to be something snobbish about that byline too...

Don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with the writers that SF covers (ReadySteadyBook would be in the front of the queue for "elitism" if that is what I had in mind!) It is more to do with the tone of the whole thing which seems to wallow in a kind of nostalgic bibliophilia which I find difficult to square with engaged, critical reading.

Thanks, Chris, for that useful clarification. Pro...

2008-06-12T09:57:00.000+01:00

Thanks, Chris, for that useful clarification. Promoting reading, particularly amongst those not in the habit of it, is clearly a Good Thing so well done The Reader. I thought I had detected the faintly sickly odour of populism and I am glad to have been proved wrong.

Ah, there's a history here. According to the ancie...

2008-06-12T09:45:00.000+01:00

Ah, there's a history here. According to the ancient myths and stories "The real reader's quarterly ..." sub-heading appeared as a deliberate attempt to distinguish Slightly Foxed from The Reader magazine, which has been around a bit longer. Of course The Reader magazine is just one part of an organisation that does outreach work, literary events--including the 'Shipping Lines' festival in Liverpool this autumn--and research. It promotes reading as a beneficial and worthwhile activity in a variety of contexts, such as prisons, hospitals and so on. So The Reader Organisation as a whole represents readers and reading in ways that a magazine, with a fairly limited constituency, cannot hope to achieve on its own. I hope that helps clear that up--and congratulations to the Slightly Foxed folk on another good-looking issue (I haven't read it yet).