Rachel Cooke
@MsRachelCooke
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Following
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Observer writer, Statesman TV critic. Her Brilliant Career; Kitchen Person; Virago Book of Friendship (Norton US 2025). Insta @msrachelcooke Bsky @msrachelcooke
Joined July 2013
I asked Andrea Leadsom to give me three positive benefits of Brexit. She couldn’t do it
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I’ve been a newspaper journalist for more than 30 years, and now I’ve done a Coronation, and I was happy and proud to be asked, and I’m with Nick Cave - let us not be too grouchy
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If you read my piece about Malta on Sunday, here’s the latest development. This is happening RIGHT NOW
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I was going to leave the men to it. But f*** it. Here’s a long interview with Mart by me, from 2006
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Reviewed this brilliant book by @glosswitch Really hope people read this piece and her book
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She was very clever, very kind and very unusual, and somehow this service captured all of it
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What a tribute to Jane Bown @observer that it was her picture the Palace released yesterday. She was 81 when she took it. Jane was the best
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Oh, David Lodge! He meant so much to me as a teenager: the funniest, the beadiest, the truest. Here's an interview I did with him at home in Brum (aka Rummidge) in 2008
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Well done everyone! Always good to destroy things others love and really need!.
Baillie Gifford cancels all remaining sponsorships of literary festivals
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Claire Tomalin is 90 today. Here’s an old interview by me with her, about which I have very tender feelings. She is amazing. Happy birthday to her
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This is just quietly to say: a series of essays I've written for @BBCRadio3 begins on Easter Monday, 2245, and runs all week. It's called The Odd Woman, and celebrates single women in all their guises: spinsters, career girls, divorcees, widows and (my favourite) maiden aunts.
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I reviewed this very long and plaintive book as best I could
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Any minute now, he's going to climb a historic spire dressed as Spiderman.
@ZombieTron @joslyoung Without wishing to in any way diminish the effect on females, male violence is a greater threat to men and boys than it is to women and girls. It's a problem that we could really do with adressing wholesale, without asking the victims to form a gender-based queue.
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I did not win at the Press Awards last night but our beloved cartoonist @chrisriddell50 (who also did not win) drew this very nice picture of me while we failed
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This is by me, about what's happening in publishing/bookselling. Thank you to all who helped @JonnyGeller @stephenpub @JezzaTrev @sarahjanewriter @Ofmooseandmen @Bookishcrick @philipdsjones and many others
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I am told this piece, an interview by me with Barbara Kingsolver about the importance of trade unions, was the most read piece on @guardian website yesterday. Obviously, we would love it if even more people read it today !.
Fascinating interview with Barbara Kingsolver from my Observer colleague @MsRachelCooke .
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Oh my God, Helena Bonham Carter will play Noele Gordon in Russell T Davies' ITV drama about the Crossroads star (possibly a niche tweet, but there you go - enjoy).
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I went to Malta, an EU country where women cannot have abortions for any reason, including rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life. Met some very brave, inspiring women
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I am incredibly tired of a) being asked to work for no money b) in effect, doing other people's work for them. If you want me or my ideas, pay me. Otherwise, do piss off.
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I wrote about Carmen Callil, my dear friend. I loved her so much
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Today has been my worst lock down day so far - the saddest, and the slowest, and a horrible, almost overwhelming sense of grief for the future.
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I think the decision of @V_and_A to change the name of the Museum of Childhood to Young V&A is a massive, stupid mistake. Everyone has a childhood, not everyone is young.
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Strange that, so far, it has only been men giving us their important thoughts on Monica Jones (in death, as in life). But luckily, I have reviewed it too!
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What will survive of us is love.
Clive James: the last interview
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From yesterday. Monsters. I really did not admire this book
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I met Bret Easton Ellis, and I liked him - so shoot me.
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Miranda Seymour’s new biography of Jean Rhys is 👀👀👀- not least for its cast of extras: grifters, gropers, literary ghouls and hangers on. I admire it so much
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Just to say that my series The Odd Woman, about spinsters, widows, great aunts and other single women, is repeated on @BBCRadio3 this week. Starts tonight, 10.45pm, and continues all week (read by me, sorry).
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How's this for sophistry? The person who asked me to speak at an event for no fee gets back in touch. I have misunderstood. She does not want to 'take' my ideas; it is more a question of my 'sharing' them. She adds that I will find this a useful 'learning experience'. I despair.
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If you like the way I write about food. This is out November 9 with @wnbooks Based on my columns in @ObsFood but with lots of new things, too, and beautiful illustrations by @hollydrawsinink Pre-order at Waterstone's
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Why are there inverted commas around ‘academic freedoms’ here? Or don’t we believe in those any more?
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Oh dear. I seem to have written an enthusiastic piece about D H Lawrence (this book is demented, brilliant and occasionally quite sexy)
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@helenlewis @mrianleslie Why would anyone join/continue to be a member of the Society of Authors when one of its officers acts like this?.
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@fossilfreebooks Will you be announcing your alternative plans for festival sponsorship soon? Asking for everyone.
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Gave blood this morning. The man next to me had been a donor for 42 yrs: this was his 100th donation. We all applauded him. Think how many lives he has saved. Also, that’s 100 Jacob’s orange Clubs eaten.
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The great Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi has died. She was 89. I went to Cairo to meet her in 2015. She was great. Fierce, brave, contrarian. And funny
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This is a piece I spent a long time working on. Thanks to all the great women who gave me their time, their expertise - and their horror stories.
‘They talk about diversity, but they don’t want to change’: @MsRachelCooke speaks to senior women in advertising as #timeTo – the industry’s answer to #MeToo – gathers momentum. Photo by @sukidhanda.
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This book by @KitchenBee is so good, and I’ve written a bit about what I feel about in my @ObsFood column tomorrow
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@juliacarriew I’m not sure you know anything at all about Britain, nor British feminists. This is just nonsense.
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@_neilarmstrong The whole thing was INSANE! Most alarming. But yes, they are. The new rhetorical red herring.
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This is from yesterday - me on Michele Roberts' radiant new memoir of a year - a book about rejection, something most of us know a bit about
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This is the piece I wrote for @edgarwright I’m happy with how it came out. As ever, older interviewees make the best interviews. Amazing women, amazing voices - esp 90-something Dorothea Phillips, still down the French House every week.
Women in 60s Soho by @MsRachelCooke: ‘In Soho, you were less judged. You could do what you wanted’ .
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Cover of French Elle. Impossible to imagine a British fashion mag doing similar
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Are you disappointed? This series by me begins tonight on Radio 3, and runs all week. It's about disappointment of all kinds: creative, in love, disappointing food, travel and, of course, politics. If you listen, I hope it doesn't disappoint
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Baroness Trumpington: I adored her when I met her. She was funny and kind and great
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Melvyn Bragg’s memoir, the best thing he’s ever written, had me crying on the bus
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Andrea Prudente will be airlifted to Spain today - thank goodness.
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Met both Eagles in Feb. Angela is a grown-up: clever, decent, hardworking, BIG BALLS. She can do it, & she knows it
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I baked a cake for a Delia Smith.
‘The world is in chaos… but together we have such power’: Delia Smith speaks to @MsRachelCooke about meditation, MasterChef and her beloved Norwich FC. 📸 @robertwilson9 .
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The Sickert show @Tate is 🔥🔥🔥This painting was once owned by Bacon, and was the only picture he hung in his studio
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It’s as if someone young had died, for me. I knew it was coming, but I still can’t believe it.
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Crying with laughter. Sixteen fucking verses! Princess Beatrice's brother-in-law writes poem for the Queen
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Very good streetlights in Ljubljana, where I’ve been working this weekend
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I find Amia Srinivasan’s book problematic in many, many ways. But she gives good interview
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In London, a lovely, soft rain is falling for the first time in many weeks - almost like there is something, someone, we need to wash away.
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If this is something you would like to read today. a long interview of Edna O'Brien by me. She was a great talker, as well as everything else
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I may be biased, but I don't think you need any other Hilary Mantel interview but this one.
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Wrote this. Amazing that right wing politicians and Arts Council types have effectively conspired on devastating cuts. Different ideologies, same result.
Twelve culture secretaries in 13 years: what does that say about the Tories’ attitude to the arts?
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I don’t (unlike some) find anger to be an energy. It depresses me beyond words that I had to write this, even working where I do.
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He really will be missed: calm, brave, clever, funny, encouraging - and journalist-loving (not all editors are). I love working for him, and can't really imagine the Observer, where I've been for 23 years, without him.
The Observer’s editor @paulfwebster is retiring this autumn. Been such a privilege to be chief leader writer and a columnist under his editorship- he’s been a brilliant boss, mentor, and friend these last ten or so years I’ve been at the Observer. He’s going to be hugely missed.
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This moronic. What's the sodding Royal Court for if not to be the very opposite of a "safe space"? Plays don't harass people. They make them think. Supposedly. London theatre axes Rita, Sue and Bob Too amid harassment claims
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@HadleyFreeman @JamilAnderlini And the bit about the butch lesbians and JK's hair - can't remember the last time I read something at once so sexist and homophobic in a (supposedly) serious publication. Fun times!.
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Shirley Conran was the best and most generous interviewee. Every line (I see the Times obit has filleted this) funny and clever and sharp. I loved meeting her, though I never wore the lace shorts
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I reviewed this gorgeous Lucie Rie show @kettlesyard If you are a pot person, or even if you’re not, it’s unmissable ❤️
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Francis Wyndham has died. A lovely and remarkable man. Here is an interview I did in 2008
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Reviewed Medieval Women @britishlibrary Beautiful and very bracing - esp. the anchoresses who were allowed to keep only one cat in their sad little cells (Eng Lit people, manuscript of Ancrene Wisse may be gawped at). Includes smells
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Tony Parsons: "I think every man with a daughter is a feminist." OH, DO PISS OFF.
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Me on department stores, with added Penelope Fitzgerald, Richard Hawley and vanilla slices
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What a fantastic appointment.
James Timpson OBE @JamesTCobbler has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation) in the Ministry of Justice @MoJGovUK.
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In Philip Larkin’s office (his GIANT ashtray and behind it his D H Lawrence mug)
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I’ve been meaning to tweet this, in the face of the Maus ban. It’s very old now, but still. An interview I did in New York with Art Spiegelman - an extraordinary person
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Terry O'Neill has died. Once, long ago, when I was the dep. ed of the Sunday Times style section, me and the editor took him for lunch. When I went to the loo, Terry told my (male) boss how amazed he was that he (my boss) allowed his secretary (er, me) to give him so much "lip".
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People asking me: I'm sure this will be online soon. .
It hasn't yet gone online, but here is the brilliant review of my new book by @MsRachelCooke for @ObsNewReview:
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This piece is unbelievable. The reviewer, Sean O'Grady, says The Satanic Verses should be banned: "it's no better than racist graffiti on a bus stop". And he's "quite inclined to burn it"
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This is about my bad back and pilates - but it's not quite the piece you think (I don't believe in miracles)
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Berthe Morisot show @DulwichGallery is gorgeous and unmissable (opens Fri). Also, I’m on Instagram now (msrachelcooke)
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I am a bit late to this book, but here she is, pink suspender belt and all
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A few of us have written about that great heroine, Katharine Whitehorn, and our love for her
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I would just like to say that Shirley by Charlotte Bronte is so brilliant and wise, and everyone should read it.
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I have strong feelings about Fleabag. So shoot me (and my hormones). .
Tonight is the final episode of Fleabag. @MsRachelCooke on why it is more than just a comedy.
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