Slightly Foxed

59: Rosemary Sutcliff and the Magic of Childhood Reading

There is nothing more exciting than seeing children captivated by the magic of stories, and for many of us there’s no better children’s storyteller than Rosemary Sutcliff

58: The Other Mitford Girl

The Mitfords continue to fascinate us, thanks to the witty novels, biographies and letters they wrote, their political involvement on both left and right, and their brush

57: Travels with Norman Lewis

Norman Lewis, who died in 2003 at the age of 95, was one of the twentieth century’s most adventurous travellers and one of its most brilliant and compelling writers. He w

56: The Thrilling World of Dick Francis

Wartime bomber pilot, champion jockey, racing journalist, bestselling novelist, Dick Francis truly was a legend. The Slightly Foxed team join Dick’s son Felix and renowne

55: At Home with the Brontës

There has never been a literary family quite like the Brontës. In our autumn podcast Ann Dinsdale, Principal Curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth in Yorkshir

54: The Many Lives of Muriel Spark

It’s been said that Muriel Spark’s career was not so much a life as a plot, and she did indeed repeatedly reinvent herself, closing one chapter of her life and opening an

53: Dervla Murphy: A Life at Full Tilt

Described as ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’, Dervla Murphy was renowned for her intrepid spirit, and she remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, conservat

52: William Golding: A Literary Colossus

The first title that springs to mind at the mention of William Golding’s name is most often Lord of the Flies. The classic story of a group of schoolboys marooned on a de

51: John le Carré: Secrets & Lies

‘David at his worst was a liar but John le Carré at his best was a truth teller.’ These were the intriguing words with which his biographer Adam Sisman concluded the conv

50: Barbara Comyns: Stranger than Fiction

 Any mention of Barbara Comyns usually brings an ‘I know the name but I don’t know anything about her’ kind of response. In this quarter’s literary podcast, presenter Ros

My Salinger Year: Joanna Rakoff & Rosie Goldsmith in Conversation

‘There was no voicemail. I was the voicemail.’ In this out-of-series special episode of the Slightly Foxed podcast Joanna Rakoff, author of the 2008 literary smash hit My

49: Down to Earth: A Farming Revival

Sarah Langford, author of Rooted: How Regenerative Farming Can Change the World, joins the Slightly Foxed Editors and presenter Rosie Goldsmith round the kitchen table to

48: Dear Dodie

Dodie Smith was a phenomenally prolific writer who experienced huge success in her lifetime but is now remembered mainly for her much-loved coming of age novel I Capture

47: Aspects of Orwell

D. J. Taylor, literary critic, novelist and Whitbread Prize-winning author of the definitive Orwell: The Life and its highly acclaimed sequel The New Life, and Masha Karp

46: Return to Kettle’s Yard

Laura Freeman, chief art critic at The Times and author of Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle’s Yard Artists, and Kettle’s Yard Director Andrew Nairne take us back to C

45: Ronald Blythe: A Life Well Written

‘I would like to be remembered as a good writer and a good man . . . Writers are observers. We are natural lookers, watchers . . . it seems to me quite wonderful that I h

44: Jean Rhys: Voyages in the Dark

The writer Jean Rhys is best known for Wide Sargasso Sea, her haunting prequel to Jane Eyre, yet her own life would have made for an equally compelling novel. Miranda Se

43: Dinner with Joseph Johnson

Bookseller, publisher, Dissenter and dinner-party host, Joseph Johnson was a great enabler in the late 18th-century literary landscape . . . Daisy Hay is the author of D

42: Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure

Paddy Leigh Fermor was just 18 when he set forth from the Hook of Holland, bound for the Golden Horn . . . Artemis Cooper, Paddy’s biographer, and Nick Hunt, author of W

41: Barbara Pym and Other Excellent Women

A latter-day Austen, an academic, a romantic, a comic, a caustic chronicler of the commonplace . . . The novelist Barbara Pym became beloved and Booker Prize-nominated in