The Ministry of Time: The special holographic edition, featuring the new short story Christmas with the Expats

(Hardback)

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'A sparkling delight' OBSERVER

'Both goofy and emphatically serious' FINANCIAL TIMES

'A triumph' DAILY MAIL

'I loved its combination of extreme whimsy, high seriousness and cool understatement' SUNDAY TIMES

'A smart, gripping work that's also a feast for the senses' LOS ANGELES TIMES

'Readers, I envy you: There's a smart, witty novel in your future' WASHINGTON POST

'Give in to the tide of this book, and let it pull you along' GUARDIAN

A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL.

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them And how do you defy history when history is living in your house

Reviews

The debut of the year by a distance . . . propulsive and exhilarating -- Five of the year's best summer reads * Observer *
What a thrill to come to Kaliane Bradley's debut, The Ministry of Time, a novel where things happen, lots of them, and all of them are exciting to read about and interesting to think about . . . give in to the tide of this book, and let it pull you along. It's very smart; it's very silly; and the obvious fun never obscures completely the sheer, gorgeous, wild stretch of her ideas -- Ella Risbridger * Guardian *
Terrific, moving . . . Bradley's writing is clear and stylish, her dialogue dry and sprightly; the serious matters of love and mortality are cloaked in humour, but never too heavily. If you loved Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, or the big hit of 2022, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, this will be right up your street . . . don't wait for this tale to come to the small screen. Crack this book open and you'll see how time can disappear -- Erica Wagner * Financial Times *
This is extraordinary writing, with unforgettable characters and a spine tingling love affair, and manages to be both a serious look at the weight of history and an absolute riot. A true original -- Francesca Steele * i Newspaper *
I loved its combination of extreme whimsy, high seriousness and cool understatement - and migration-as-time-travel is a clever conceit -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * The Times *
Fizzing with sharp one-liners about everything from Tinder to e-scooters, the novel is also a thoughtful meditation on imperialism and immigration -- 50 of the best new books to dive into * Guardian *
An addictive sci-fi romantic comedy . . . Laugh-out-loud funny and a suprisingly powerful meditation on the climate crisis, it's above all exciting, fun and a good old-fashioned page turner that you'll recommend to all your friends -- Best new books for summer 2024 * Independent *
A thoughtful dive into colonialism via time-travelling expats, the perfect beach read with some literary heft . . . Bradley's debut is also acute on what refuge means in a swiftly changing world -- Nilanjana Roy, Journalists pick their favourite book of 2024 so far * Financial Times *
Intelligent and witty . . . a clever, funny yarn that breathes fresh air into time-travel novels, postcolonial narratives and romance stories alike . . . a sparkling delight -- Bidisha Mamata * Observer *
Innovative . . . . Laugh-out-loud funny and a surprisingly powerful meditation on the climate crisis, it's above all exciting, fun and a good old-fashioned page-turner that you'll recommend to all your friends * Independent *
A triumph -- Sara Lawrence * Daily Mail *
Comedy, betrayal and romance collide in a story that explores everything from climate change and colonialism to friendship, hope and forgiveness. Start backing out of your weekend plans now . . . -- Book of the Week * Stylist *
A powerfully drawn love story, an insider's takedown of murky bureaucracy, an action thriller . . . It's a fun ride * Evening Standard *
A lot of fun - a romantic comedy wrapped in a science fiction premise with plenty of thought-provoking observations on history. I'm loving it -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * Daily Mail *
One of 2024's best debuts so far, the book is both goofy and emphatically serious - a time-travelling romcom that's also a subtle rumination on the legacies of empire and colonialism -- Best summer books * Financial Times *
Her utterly winning book is a result of violating not so much the laws of physics as the boundaries of genre. Imagine if The Time Traveler's Wife had an affair with A Gentleman in Moscow . . . Readers, I envy you: There's a smart, witty novel in your future -- Ron Charles * Washington Post *
With a thoroughly offbeat love story at its heart and subtly interwoven musings on the UK's imperial legacy, it's fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder -- 10 best new novelists for 2024 * Observer *
History collides delightfully with contemporaneity . . . intriguing * Times Literary Supplement *
A delightfully audacious screwball comedy -- Katie Goh, Fiction to be excited for in 2024 * i-D *
The smartest, most fun kind of time travel fiction -- The best new books for summer * Evening Standard *
The perfect mix of witty, sexy and moving * Good Housekeeping *
Bradley's compelling debut novel asks the important question: What if the sexiest guy in the history book moved into your flat . . . Part romantic comedy, part speculative thriller, the novel weaves together commentary on colonialism, bureaucracy and government with carefully drawn characters and gradually unfurling relationships. Don't start it right before bed unless you want to see the sun come up -- The best books of 2024 * GQ *
It's a smart, gripping work that's also a feast for the senses . . . Bradley's written an edgy, playful and provocative book that's likely to be the most thought-provoking romance novel of the summer * Los Angeles Times *
This funny, compelling novel is not to be missed * Woman & Home *
An assured and fun debut . . . one of our books of the year -- Unmissable books for 2024 * Stylist *
A thrilling time-travelling romance about a real-life Victorian polar explorer who is brought from the past into 21st-century London as part of a government experiment -- 40 best books of 2024 * Sunday Times *
Wildly original . . . How horny can a speculative fiction novel be Bradley's debut is at once an outrageously fun comedy while also providing keen analyses on the nature of colonialism, power & bureaucracy -- 10 exciting books to look out for in 2024 * Dazed *
Social media is already aflutter about this one, a time-travelling love story -- Novels to look out for in 2024 * Grazia *
The Ministry of Time is set to take you on a seismic literary journey spanning past, present and future . . . Think: 2024's answer to Outlander -- Best summer reads for 2024 * Evening Standard *
One of the year's most exciting debuts is The Ministry of Time . . . a genre-bending romcom about a Victorian polar explorer and a millennial civil servant who end up as housemates thanks to a government experiment in time travel -- 45 of 2024's most anticipated books * BBC.com *
One of the most anticipated debuts of the year -- Panashe Nyadundu * Elle *
Bradley writes with sparkling vividness and precision, infectiously capturing the mind-bending effects of love. Whizzing up time-travel, romance, espionage, friendship and loss with dazzling assurance, this riotous journey into the British empire and establishment reckons with our colonial past, our myopic present and our fragile future -- Book of the Month * Bookseller *
Within the first couple of pages I was gripped. The novel is clever, witty and thought-provoking, asking the question of what any of us might do if we could engage live with people from the past. Kaliane Bradley is a wonderful writer and I can't wait to read what she does next -- Kate Mosse, bestselling author of THE GHOST SHIP
Holy smokes this novel is an absolute cut above! Kaliane Bradley leaps into a storytelling league of her own. This book is a deadly serious speculative fiction but it is also one of the funniest books I've read in years. It is exciting, surprising, intellectually provocative, weird, radical, tender and moving. I missed it when I was away from it. I will hurry to re-read it. Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic. -- Max Porter, bestselling author of SHY
Smart and affecting, full of ideas plus that slow-burning love story, it's a wonderful debut -- David Nicholls, author of YOU ARE HERE
An outrageously brilliant debut with a premise that just gets more and more original. The Ministry of Time pulls off the neatest trick of speculative fiction, first estranging us from our own era, and then facilitating our immigration back into the present; but it is also a love story, exploratory, sensitive, charged with possibility, and powered by desire, reminding us that history is synonymous with human beings, and that we all have the ability to change it. This is already the best new book I will have read next year -- Eleanor Catton, author of BIRNAM WOOD
As electric, charming, whimsical and strange as its ripped-from-history cast. (Extremely.) I loved every second I spent wrapped up in Kaliane Bradley's stunning prose, the moments that made me laugh and those that made my heart ache. This is a book that surprises as much as it delights, and I'm already impatiently waiting for whatever Bradley concocts next -- Emily Henry, author of HAPPY PLACE
There aren't many books that are as funny as they are clever as they are compelling. The Ministry of Time is hugely enjoyable: ingeniously constructed, beautifully written, and unexpectedly sexy. It is the rarest of creations: a boldly entertaining page-tuner that is also deeply, thoughtfully engaged with our past, present and future. A weird and tender time-travel love story. A brilliantly original debut. Your next crush is a long-dead Arctic explorer -- Joanna Quinn, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE
With its ingenious concept and gripping plot, The Ministry of Time is the most fun you could possibly ever have while engaging so seriously with history and our place in it. Bradley has a gift for locating our common humanity in people's irreducible eccentricity. This is a book to read

Author Bio

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, Somesuch Stories and The Willowherb Review, among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her first novel.