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Vicky MacKenzie

@vickymackenzie.bsky.social

3.5K followers 2.4K following 1.5K posts

Writer, cat lady, John Ruskin obsessive, wrote a novel about medieval mystics. Aspiring anchoress. https://victoriamackenzie.net/ Substack: https://victoriamackenzie.substack.com/

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · May 8

And as always a thousand thank yous to @frankcottrellboyce.bsky.social who wrote this astounding and thoughtful review of my book when it first came out, and sent it out into the world with a bang! 😍
www.theguardian.com/books/2023/j...

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie review – a pocket epic

This electrifying debut compares the spiritual adventures of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich

www.theguardian.com

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 43m

Fife thinks it's still summer...

Photo of view of sea with gorse in foreground and sunshine

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Alison Brackenbury @abrackenbury.bsky.social · 1h

I've long admired the poet R.S.Thomas for unflinching confrontation with his truths,including God as a ravenous owl! Now, on Radio 4, Gwyneth Lewis tells the story of Mildred Eldridge, the successful young painter who married Thomas.Her art can be seen online. LINK IN COMMENTS!

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Nuala O'Connor @nualaoconnor.bsky.social · 5d

Look at this little beauty, an exquisite hardback edition of James Joyce's story 'The Dead' from @newislandbooks.bsky.social
And I've written a new intro, which was both pleasure and privilege.

Out Nov. 7th!

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

For me there's room for both in my life - a paperback to stuff in a bag for a long train journey, or get pasta sauce on when I read over dinner, and then a few special editions to do my gloating over when I'm in the mood for a gloat 😉

Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

Such a generous approach! 💙

Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

Dammit!

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Jimena Gorráez @jimenagorraez.bsky.social · 1d

'Compassionate and compelling.' @thetls.bsky.social
Serhy Yekelchyk reviews @victoriadonovan.bsky.social LIFE IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING: TALES FROM THE UKRAINIAN EAST.
www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

A portal into past worlds

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 thrust the Donbas region onto the front pages of newspapers worldwide, yet the area remained frustratingly

www.the-tls.com

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

(Anyone replies to this anodyne book post with a reference to his supposed public hair phobia gets blocked 😊)

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

John Ruskin used to trim his books so they would fit on his bookcase 😭

Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 1d

The veneration of Books As Objects misses the point entirely. If you're reading a book, turn the corners down, break the spine, spill soup on it. It's your book, go nuts. A pristine, unread book is a tragedy in a way that a beloved, much-read book that looks like the dog's been at it could never be.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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🏳️‍⚧️🇨🇦 Valkyrie Eleison @anitmata.bsky.social · 1d

Trollope > Dickens

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Aarik Danielsen @aarikdanielsen.bsky.social · 1d

all i want are books that make me feel more human. if it does that, i care so very little how/where it lands for tastemakers, on genre lists, etc. i'm with you.

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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 1d

Everyone's literary opinions and "taste clusters" are too set in stone and it is making everything unsexy. Art should break through to us and imho it does that by having a vitality beyond genre, tropes and assumed marketability

We need more well-paid critics hyping sophisticated, multihyphenate art

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Mike Fox @polyscribe70.bsky.social · 1d

Margery Kempe and Dame Julian of Norwich share the narrative in this exquisite novel by @vickymackenzie.bsky.social
Contrasting medieval lives, each with the same intent, their circumstances and inner worlds rendered with deep insight and authenticity. A wonderful book.

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks, Mike! So pleased you enjoyed it!

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Dave Johnson @dcjohnson.bsky.social · 2d

Why doesn't the UK media talk about Farage and Russian money?

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Uniformbooks @uniformbooks.bsky.social · 2d

John Bevis, 'Cloud Study'; Dymo tape edition, 1981.
“There is always a danger that the use of any system of names based on types shall lead to the neglect of everything not typical.”—Arthur W. Clayden, Cloud Studies, 1905.

Two white cardboard boxes on a wooden background, with a rolled black Dymo tape label and white text.

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Fiona Maddocks @fionahmaddocks.bsky.social · 3d

observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Well worth reading this

It’s not opera that’s elitist but the idea that art is to...

The myth that culture has not been for the masses is debunked in a new book

observer.co.uk

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 3d

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

www.desmog.com

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Joe O'Hara @joeoharadcu.bsky.social · 3d

When life imitates art

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 3d

NEW: The British politician, his Russian intelligence handler & a Kremlin plot against the US & Ukraine.

My new piece about Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage for @thenerve_news in which we ask:

Why, even now, is no-one asking questions?

t.co/BUTtpK9C4S

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Joanna Pocock @joannapocock.bsky.social · 3d

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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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 3d

A misty Sunday morning in October, might as well read this... Surprised the translator, Barbara J. Haveland, isn't mentioned on either the front or back cover - I thought we were over erasing translators these days? Seems not.

Photo of book, On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

2026 Reading 59: Brightening from the East by Ken Worpole. A perfectly judged present from @guineagibbs.bsky.social that I finally finished this weekend. The main attraction is the long essay ‘The New English Landscape’, originally published by Field Station with photos by Jason Orton.

Paperback book of Brightening from the East: Essays on landscape and memory by
Ken Worpole with a photograph of three shire-type horses walking on an empty country road with crash barriers in the background.

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JacquiWine @jacquiwine.bsky.social · 3d

PSA for Jean Rhys fans!

If you’re in London, get yourself along to the POSTURES: JEAN RHYS IN THE MODERN WORLD exhibition at the Michael Werner Gallery in Mayfair, which includes various artworks in conversation with Rhys’ books.

I especially loved these pieces by Celia Paul & Gwen John. 💙📚

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Vicky MacKenzie @vickymackenzie.bsky.social · 4d

Yup.

Wendy Pratt @wendypratt.bsky.social · 4d

My dream life would involve three things:
1. Writing books.
2. Pottering about.
3. Reading books.

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