The Oldest Paper in the World

In Episode 2: The Oldest Paper in the World Gail, Hazel and Jennie talk to Frances Wood, librarian, sinologue and former head of the Chinese Collection at the British Library; Andrew Hawkins recounts the story of the oldest paper in the world; and we find out which books our readers are hoping for this Christmas. www.foxedquarterly.com/pod

Books Mentioned

• Ernest H. Shepard illustrated Winnie-the-Pooh and Wind in the Willows. His memoirs are Drawn from Memory and Drawn from Life

• A Country Doctor’s Commonplace Book

• Issue 60 of Slightly Foxed

• David Seabrook, All the Devils Are Here

• Jonathan Coe, Middle England

• Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

• Max Hastings, Vietnam

• Philip Kerr, Greeks Bearing Gifts

• Germain Greer’s White Beech is out of print, but we may be able to get hold of second hand copies. Please get in touch for details

• Michael Palin, Erebus: The Story of a Ship

• Sebastian Fauks, Paris Echo

• BB’s books are Brendon Chase, The Little Grey Men and Down the Bright Stream

• Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny

• Hilary Spurling, Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time

• Carys Davies, West

• Sally Rooney, Normal People

• Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room

• Katie Stewart’s Times Cookery Book is out of print, but we may be able to get hold of second hand copies. Please get in touch for details

• Julian Barnes, The Pedant in the Kitchen

• Nigel Slater, The Christmas Chronicles

• Qiu Xiaolong’s Detective Chen series begins with Death of a Red Heroine

• Frances Wood, Hand-grenade Practice in Peking

Related Slightly Foxed Articles & Illustrations

• Luna North produced the cover for Issue 59 of Slightly Foxed, Autumn 2018

• Frances Wood’s article, The Oldest Paper in the World, appeared in Issue 27 of Slightly Foxed, Autumn 2014

Other Links

• The Slightly Foxed Readers’ Day 2018 took place on 9 November at the Art Workers’ Guild. Our speakers were:

• Miranda Seymour, who talked about Byron's wife and daughter, Annabella Milbanke & Ada Lovelace

• Edmond Gordon, whose biography The Invention of Angela Carter won the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2017

• Penelope Lively and Ursula Buchan discussed two of their passions; writing and gardening

• St Jude’s artists: Angie Lewin, Chloe Cheese and Christopher Brown

• Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine

• Details on our Writing Competition can be found here

• The Diamond Sutra is still available to see in the British Library

• Slightly Foxed is printed and bound by Smith Settle

• The Birth of a Book video can be seen here

• Music and sound effects:

  Music for reading from The Oldest Paper in the World is Meditations on Life by Matthew Huffaker, Teknoaxe and made available under Creative Commons 4.0 license (no changes made).

  Sound effect of sleigh bells thanks to Gowler Music via FreeSound.org under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0 (no changes made).

• The Slightly Foxed Podcast is hosted by Philippa Lamb and produced by Podcastable