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Rachel Malik

@rachelmalik.bsky.social

1.1K followers 810 following 1.9K posts

Writes, reads, watches, worries. 1st novel Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves - SL for Walter Scott prize. LL for V S Pritchett Short Story. Second novel, A Fire of Stalks and Feathers, coming soon I hope https://linktr.ee/rachel.malik99

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · Nov 14

Some of you will know I've written a novel, Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, based on the life of my black sheep grandmother, Rene Hargreaves and her partner Elsie Boston.

I was sent this recently by a relative of Elsie's. Elsie far right, elusive as ever, garden theatricals.

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 8h

Excellent!

Reposted by Rachel Malik

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 10h

Tired Of Reality? Press advertisement for London’s Games Workshop

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

Ditto

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

Sorry. Have missed so many things recently. How are you Dorian?

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

One of my students told me about it. Teaching Good Morning Midnight next term.

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

💙💙

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 13h

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

So much on. Am hoping to see this show this week

Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World - Curated by Hilton Als - Exhibitions - Michael Werner Gallery, New York, London, Beverly Hills

Since 1963, Michael Werner Gallery has worked with some of the most important European and American artists of the 20th Century.

www.michaelwerner.com

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 18h

WELL THEN IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL IS IT, NICK www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 13h

Issue 4 of my newsletter, this one a commonplace book issue full of quotes about parents and children, went out yesterday. Come for one of Waugh’s children calling him a sadist, stay for a comedian reflecting on making out in cemeteries as a teen.

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · Aug 25

I started a newsletter, friends.

this-not-that.ghost.io

This, Not That

Reccomending some good books, movies, music, and more

this-not-that.ghost.io

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Joanna Pocock @joannapocock.bsky.social · 18h

This book! I read Simone de Beauvoir’s THE IMAGE OF HER in one sitting. Absolutely phenomenal. Translated beautifully by @lauren_elkin_
Imagine some of the psychological and linguistic slippages of Virginia Woolf with the acuity of de Beauvoir as she describes the inner workings of a bourgeois (1)

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 1d

Derwent village’s drowned church in Ladybower Reservoir, Derbyshire

two people looking at a church spire above the water level of a reservoir

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 2d

Love this

Viola Tricolor @kaffeehaus.bsky.social · 2d

... which is why this spectacle serves well for the decoration of a fan:

Italy, 18th century (unknown artist)

Fan Design with Views of Mount Vesuvius and the Tomb of Virgil

(www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...)

Photo of a design for a fan: Big panel in the middle shows the eruption of a volcano at night, dark sky, red fire, a lighthouse and two sails lit up by the volcano.

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 2d

Very different I’m sure but I had a similar uncertain, wary pull to see a once close friend after my mum died. We did meet and it was great. We haven’t seen each other since or been in contact but that also feels ok.

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Viola Tricolor @kaffeehaus.bsky.social · 4d

"The Book Censor's Library" by Bothayna al-Essa was a great read for me and it's so shockingly timely. I've read it a second time recently and found it even more pertinent for our times.
This interview was interesting because I don't know much about her, for example ...

Book cover of "The Book Censor's Library" by Bothayna al-Essa

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Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 3d

breaking: man who got over £10million book advance doesn't known the price of a book

Indie bookshops absolutely CANNOT discount a £30 to £20. We'd be making a loss. We sell books at RRP, unlike big chains.

www.thebookseller.com/comment/richard-osmans-sums-dont-add-up?

Osman's sums don't add up

Despite widespread belief, indies just can't afford to discount books.

www.thebookseller.com

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Remi Kanazi @remikanazi.bsky.social · 3d

If a ceasefire holds, you boycott Israel HARDER, you divest, you push for sanctions. You don't perform for apartheid. You don't whitewash genocide. You don't pretend like Israel isn't still a violent occupier stealing land and collectively punishing Palestinians daily

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 3d

Goodnight

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

When I was very young, we went to eat in the restaurant at the top of the have no memory of it except fear that it was going to spin out of control. Was never adventurous clearly.

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Must read this.

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Article rather good on the absurdity of the mantra of ‘showing both sides’

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Rónán Hession @ronanhession.bsky.social · 3d

Dublin small press fair on 28 & 29 November at Pearse St library. Free and open to the public.

dublinsmallpressfair.com

dublinsmallpressfair.com

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Brilliant

Radz Pandit @radzpandit.bsky.social · 3d

"Over in one corner, I saw one nondescript extra who looked like Al Pacino's brother's friend. Someone told me later that he was Robert De Niro."
#NYRBWomen25

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Salt Books @saltpublishing.com · 3d

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has shared our fundraiser – your cash will fund more authors & their work. A BIG part of what we do is helping writers in mid-career – so thanks on behalf of them. If you can share our link, please do! Every pound is invested in writers. #Booksky #IndiePublishing

Donate to Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026, organized by Christopher Hamilton-Emery

New books and reprints arrive daily at Salty Towers – and we'… Christopher Hamilton-Emery needs your support for Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026

gofund.me

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

For #BannedBooksWeek

‘They didn’t even read the book’: How children’s authors are being canceled over Palestine

Authors tell of book bans, cancellations and harassment – ‘they’re trying to disconnect us from our stories’

www.theguardian.com

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Oh yes!