Slightly Foxed

The new issue of Slightly Foxed (No.41, Spring 2014) arrived this morning and as usual the day threatened to grind to a halt. I am slowly learning to resist the urge to find a quiet corner and consume its 96 pages in one gulp and to ration my reading over the three months before the next issue. And so I've just read the first essay - a review of Lewis Thomas' groundbreaking The Lives Of A Cell : Notes of a Biology Watcher by Richard Mabey - which is as eloquent and persuasive as you would expect, but what intrigued me was the constant references to the brilliant and really badly-missed Vole magazine that Mabey contributed to and that was edited by one of my heroes - the late Richard Boston. I have every issue of Vole and still refer to it regularly for its timeless and often prescient nuggets of ecological wisdom. In the footnote to Mabey's piece it mentions that he "still yearns for the resurrection of a New Vole". What an overwhelmingly welcome event that would be!

Joseph Mitchell's Secret

Good piece in Vanity Fair on the background to the great Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece Joe Gould's Secret - http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/02/joe-gould-secret-mystery

Neil Sentance - Water and Sky : Voices from The Riverside

Regular Caught By The River readers will know and love the writing of Neil Sentance from his series of beautifully written essays about the countryside, people and history of his native Lincolnshire. In April the rest of the world will be able to explore and delight in the man's work when a book which collects these pieces is published jointly by Caught By The River and the excellent Little Toller.Details were posted yesterday : http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2014/02/water-and-sky-a-caught-by-the-river-book/ and Mr.Sentance will be appearing and talking in the Caught By The River tent at this year's Port Eliot Festival in July. A perfect combination if ever there was one.
Links : www.porteliotfestival.com and www.littletoller.co.uk