The Ministry of Time: The Instant Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller

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A BARACK OBAMA READING PICK

'A sparkling delight' Observer

'Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic' Max Porter

'Crack this book open and you'll see how time can disappear' Financial Times

'A wonderful debut' David Nicholls

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 *
Simply adorable . . . It's the book I have recommended to friends with the most success -- Books of the Year * Spectator *
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 to read in 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 *
Smart, funny and moving, this debut has been the hit of the year -- Five of the best science fiction books of 2024 * Guardian *
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 *
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 *
This romp of a spy thriller-meets-romance sees a civil servant help a time traveller from 1847 adjust to the modern world. But they soon question the program that united them -- The best 10 books of 2024 * People *
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 *
The book I recommended most often and with the most success this year . . . Fun but not frivolous, intelligent but not belaboured, The Ministry of Time is utterly winning -- The 10 best books of 2024 * Slate *
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 *
An enormously ambitious genre mash-up about a Victorian naval commander plucked from a doomed polar expedition to a near-future London as part of a shadowy government experiment. There's plenty of fish-out-of-water humour as he learns how to ride a motorbike (in leathers), use Google ("what is miso paste") and navigate modern love . . . A BBC adaptation is already in the works. Read it now, so you can smugly tell everyone the book version was better -- Best books of 2024 * The Standard *
History collides delightfully with contemporaneity . . . intriguing * Times Literary Supplement *
The Ministry of Time pulls historical figures into the near future, where inevitable romantic entanglements complicate a mysterious governmental project -- The best romance novels of 2024 * New York Times *
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 *
I was also blown away by Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, which combines time travel, a gruesome failed polar exploration, British spy craft, post-colonial reckoning and serious (but never lecturer-y) moral grappling about nationhood and othering and thinking-we-know-best-because-we-are-we. All this as well as an utterly compelling narrator, crackling dialogue, sweet romance and steamy sex. An absolute joy -- Emily Maguire, Writers pick the best books of 2024 * Sydney Morning Herald *
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 *
My book of the year. And I'd also like to nominate Graham as my "book boyfriend" of the year! -- Best books of the year * Red *
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 *
You'll be hooked. Come for the romance, stay for the unravelling of a mystery, the nuanced, genre-bending treatises on race and identity, and the long-lingering ideas on colonialism, empires and the mutability of history -- 12 novels that NPR critics and staff were excited to share with you in 2024 * NPR *
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 *
Swoony . . . a crisply observed, laugh-out-loud study of a civil servant trying to do a decent job at a very odd assignment: being a guide of sorts to a person literally plucked out of history and brought into our own time. Bradley's book asks what might be possible-and what hope we as humans might have-if we could meet and truly engage with past people and even our past selves. It's a novel that takes on some big, existential questions about the weight of history with a lightness and deftness that is utterly unexpected and delightful -- The best books of 2024 * Smithsonian Magazine *
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 *
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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.