LoveReading Says
Oh my God. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. (Pun intended?)
Another writer could have had this already brilliant and inventive take on the time travel idea (that a time machine could be used to transport strangers from the past into the present, and if that was done by the government, mightn’t they use an agent to assist/monitor that ‘time immigrant’?) but Bradley has then embedded this within rich multifaced layers – an aching love story, a shocking thriller, and an incisive exploration of ‘modern’ politics, with no lazy answers about what it is to be a multi-faceted person working for a secret part of a government in an age whose actions decide the future (and past?) of the climate crisis, nationhood, colonialism, technology, weaponry, wars.
And it’s written masterfully, in such deft, playful prose, so that on a structural and line level it’s constantly surprising and captivating. Bradley absolutely delivers on the comic and philosophical potential of a group of figures from different eras discovering a modern era together – their dialogue is a masterclass in writing historical language, and the scenes of the crew bonding over drinks in Soho or trips to galleries are brilliantly witty and heartwarming in equal measure.
I swooned over Commander Graham Gore, a man who would have died in 1847 in a doomed expedition to the Arctic. I had to cover my face in the park as I was crying so much at this tender, lovely, impossible romance. GOD.
Like the millions of other more impressive authors blurbing this book, I was recommending it to friends before I’d finished the third chapter, and now I’ve finished it, will continue to do so with even more obsession in my eyes.
Lily Lindon
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The Ministry of Time Synopsis
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?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781399726344 |
| Publication date: |
14th May 2024 |
| Author: |
Kaliane Bradley |
| Publisher: |
Sceptre an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
368 pages |
| Primary Genre |
General Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Kaliane Bradley Press Reviews
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
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
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
I gobbled this up in twenty-four hours: I simply could not stop reading it. Kaliane Bradley writes with the maximalist confidence of P. G. Wodehouse, but also with the page-turning pining of Sally Rooney. It's thought-provoking and horribly clever - but it also made me laugh out loud. And it's got a cracking plot! I loved The Ministry of Time and I can't wait for everyone to read it so I can talk about it more -- Alice Winn, author of IN MEMORIAM
A fantastic debut: conceptually brilliant, really funny, genuinely moving, written in the most exquisite language and with a wonderful articulation of the knotty complexities of a mixed-race heritage -- Mark Haddon, author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
Sly and illusionless in its use of history, lovely in its sentences, warm - no, hotter than that - in its characterisation, devastating in its denouement. A weird, kind, clever, heartsick little time bomb of a book -- Francis Spufford, author of GOLDEN HILL
What a stunning and remarkable wonder! What if time travel were run by a bureaucracy? It would give us The Ministry of Time - a book that takes the history of colonialism, the British Empire, Cambodian genocide, and other terrible moments of history, and reminds us we are still living with the remnants of these troubled pasts. But also, it's filled to the brim with laugh-out-loud humour, and possibly the best description of a dingy pub I've ever read in my life. There's something for everyone - world history, side-splitting humour, lusty tension, brilliant prose, and characters to root for desperately. Bradley describes someone in the novel as being "sweaty and vibeless", but I want to counter with this: The Ministry of Time is the most vibe-forward book I have ever read -- Vanessa Chan, author of THE STORM WE MADE
