Foxglove Books

Independent since 2011 · Rowan Street

The book you didn't know you were looking for.

Foxglove is a 400-square-foot bookshop with opinions. Every title on our shelves was read by someone who works here — and if we can't defend it, we don't stock it.

Open today until 8pm Free local delivery over $40 1,900+ hand-picked titles
The Salt AlmanacImogen Rea
Nightjar, NightjarD. Okonkwo
A Field Guide to LeavingM. Verhoeven
The Quiet CartographerInes Bellweather
Bright Hollow FeverAmara Voss
Everything We Owe the RainJ. Calloway
Small Hours, Long WinterPetra Lindqvist

this week's stack — all seven read & argued over by the staff

On the front table

New this fortnight

What we've unpacked, read, and decided is worth your evening. Prices include the shipping we eat on local orders.

All 1,900 titles
Signed

Harrowgate Press

The Salt Almanac

Imogen Rea

Fiction · Hardback

The Salt Almanac

Imogen Rea

$26.00 Signed 1st ed.

New

Coldwater Editions

The Quiet Cartographer

Ines Bellweather

Nature · Hardback

The Quiet Cartographer

Ines Bellweather

$24.00 Hardback

Harrowgate Press

A Field Guide to Leaving

M. Verhoeven

Essays · Paperback

A Field Guide to Leaving

M. Verhoeven

$18.50 Paperback

New

Nightjar Books

Nightjar, Nightjar

D. Okonkwo

Fiction · Paperback

Nightjar, Nightjar

D. Okonkwo

$19.00 Reading club pick

Coldwater Editions

Bright Hollow Fever

Amara Voss

Fiction · Paperback

Bright Hollow Fever

Amara Voss

$17.00 Paperback

Rowan Street Press

Small Hours, Long Winter

Petra Lindqvist

Poetry · Paperback

Small Hours, Long Winter

Petra Lindqvist

$15.00 Paperback

Secondhand

Marlin & Sons, 1974

Everything We Owe the Rain

J. Calloway

Essays · Secondhand

Everything We Owe the Rain

J. Calloway

$9.50 Good condition

Rowan Street Press

Foxglove & Other Warnings

Halle Marchetti

Poetry · Hardback

Foxglove & Other Warnings

Halle Marchetti

$21.00 Shop exclusive

Handwritten, taped to the shelf

Staff picks

The little cards you find under the books at Foxglove. We write them ourselves, and nobody is paid to like anything.

The Salt Almanac I. Rea

Fiction

The Salt Almanac

Imogen Rea · 384pp

I sold my own copy to a customer who wouldn't stop asking about it, then bought it again the same week. A widow catalogues the tide for forty years. Sounds slow. Reader, I missed my stop twice.

Marguerite, buyer14 yrs here

$26.00 Signed 1st ed.

The Quiet Cartographer I. Bellweather

Nature

The Quiet Cartographer

Ines Bellweather · 240pp

A woman walks the same six miles of moor for a year and maps what changes. It rewired how I look at the hill behind my flat. Buy it for the person who says they "don't read nature writing."

Theo, eveningsPoetry Hour host

$24.00 Hardback

Nightjar, Nightjar D. Okonkwo

Fiction

Nightjar, Nightjar

D. Okonkwo · 312pp

Two brothers, one bird, and a village that keeps its promises badly. The last forty pages are the best thing published this year and I will happily argue about that at the till.

Ruth, ownerSince 2011

$19.00 Club pick

Upstairs, most evenings

Events & the reading club

We move the front table, put out thirty chairs, and open the wine. No tickets to most of it — just turn up.

Jul18

Imogen Rea reads from The Salt Almanac

Reading, then a proper Q&A. Signing until we run out of pens.

Ticketed · 7:30pm
Jul24

Poetry Hour

Open mic, eight minutes each. Bring a poem or bring nothing.

Free · 7:00pm
Just turn up
Aug02

Reading Club: Nightjar, Nightjar

Members and first-timers both welcome. We start at the ending.

Members free · 7:00pm
Aug09

Secondhand Saturday

Bring a box, leave with credit. We value on the spot, cash or trade.

Free · 11am–4pm
Walk in
Aug16

Small Presses Night

Four independent publishers, one table, far too much to carry home.

Ticketed · 7:30pm
The Foxglove Books shop floor: exposed brick, timber beams, a rolling ladder against a full-height bookcase and a red velvet chaise.
A close row of well-thumbed books stood upright, seen from their page edges.

The shop

Four hundred square feet, and not one filler shelf

Ruth opened Foxglove in 2011 in a room that had been a cobbler's, then a phone repair place, then empty for three years. The brick was already there. The ladder came from a farm sale in Ardleigh and it does, we promise, hold.

We're small on purpose. A chain carries 40,000 titles because it can; we carry 1,900 because that's how many we can genuinely vouch for. Ask any of us for a recommendation and you'll get a real one — occasionally a long one.

"If I can't tell you why it's on the shelf, it comes off the shelf."
— Ruth Ellery, owner

1,900
Titles, each one read
60+
Reading club members
42
Author events last year

Foxglove Membership

Let us choose for you. We're very good at it.

Tell us three books you loved and one you couldn't finish. Every month we post you something we're confident about — with a card explaining exactly why.

  • A hand-picked book each month, wrapped in paper
  • 10% off everything else, in shop and online
  • Free seat at every ticketed event upstairs
  • Swap it, no questions, if we get it wrong

The Reader's Subscription

$22per month, cancel any time

Books are $15–$28 retail. Most months you're up on the deal, and we're fine with that.

  • One hand-picked book, posted free
  • Reading club seat included
  • 10% off the whole shop
  • First refusal on signed stock
Join Foxglove

No contract. Pause it in December like everyone does.

From the people who keep coming back

What the regulars say

“I asked for something like a novel I'd loved in 2009 and Theo didn't even blink. Third recommendation in a row they've nailed. I've stopped browsing online entirely.”
Hannah MbekiMember since 2019
“The reading club is the only standing plan in my calendar I've never cancelled. Ruth's notes are better than most reviews I've paid to read.”
Danny CruzReading club, 4 years
“Bought the subscription for my dad, who claimed he didn't read anymore. He now phones me about the books. I don't know what they put in the wrapping paper.”
Sara OkaforGifted a membership

The Foxglove Letter

One email a month. Nothing to unsubscribe from twice.

What we've unpacked, what's coming upstairs, and one book we can't stop pressing on people. Written by Ruth, on a Sunday, badly.

About 900 people get it. Roughly 11 have ever left.

You're on the list — see you on a Sunday.

An open book held in two hands, lit from within by a tangle of warm fairy lights.