Is it a time travel book? Mystery? Thriller? Love story? All of the above and more. The premise: a not-too-distant future in which sample individuals from across history have been “rescued” by the British Crown and brought to modern-day London as “ex-pats” in order to assess the safety and feasibility of time travel.
Beyond the usual brain-twisting loops of overlapping timelines, grandfather paradoxes, and butterfly effects, this novel wrestles with the gamut of sociological constructs and conflicts: institutional racism, technology dependency, immigration struggles, gender roles, civil rights, equality of the sexes, political correctness, nationalism, colonialism—the list goes on. What would a person born hundreds of years ago think of the modern era? What would we think of them? What modern social mores would they embrace or balk at?
The writing is crisp, evocative and thought provoking, The baked-in British humor is devastatingly deadpan. A triumph of a debut novel!
A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
An engrossing, multifaceted story about a group of friends that learn to create a “found family” to help them rise above their hardscrabble lives. As the years pass and life gets in the way—fame, fortune, brushes with the law, death—the friends find their way back to one another in order to make room for an unexpected addition to their ride-or-die group.
As a writer, Backman is an alchemist; he has a way of taking prickly characters (angsty teenagers, grumpy old men, etc.) and transmuting them on the page into someone you look forward to spending time with and grieve to part from when the story ends. My Friends is a touching story of humanity and the power of friendship...with a generous dose of fart jokes thrown in to keep the “human” in humanity front and center.
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads •USA TODAY • Marie Claire • BookPage • Literary Lifestyle •Book Riot •Sunset Magazine • Totally Booked with Zibby Owens * A Fallon Book Club Pick
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger's life twenty-five years later.
Most people don't even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of…
Raised in a strict Mormon household in rural Idaho, Tara Westover gives us a rare glimpse of what it is like to live off the grid in modern America. In terms of being educated, this is a true-life “rags to riches” story: a self-taught child who rises above her stifling, survivalist upbringing to become a Cambridge scholar.
A truly remarkable and brave account of defying one’s family, breaking free of psychological conditioning, reaching for impossible dreams until they become possible, learning to accept help, and pruning abusive relationships out of one’s family tree.
The prose is direct and engaging. The story impossible to put down!
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE
'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…
An outstanding new voice in memoir, Christine Herbert takes the reader on a “time-machine tour” of her Peace Corps volunteer service as a health worker and educator from 2004–2006 in Zambia. Rather than a retrospective, this narrative unfolds in the present tense, propelling the reader alongside the memoirist through a fascinating exploration of a life lived “off the grid.”
At turns harrowing, playful, dewy-eyed and wise, the author’s heart and candor illuminate every chapter, whether she is the heroine of the tale or her own worst enemy. Even at her most petulant, the laugh-out-loud humor scuppers any “white savior” mentality and lays bare the undeniable humanity—and humility—of the storyteller. Through it all, an undeniable love for Zambia—its people, land and culture—shines through.
