What a Time to be Alive!

Scenes from a Strange Age
Experience the magic of Donald Trump’s cavalcade of henchmen, watch with nothing but optimism as our Silicon Valley overlords hit their imperial phase – and let your jaw drop as Brooklyn secedes from the Beckhams.

Truly, these are times that make you want to put your hands over your eyes, even when your hands are already over your eyes.

A wildly funny collection from Britain’s favourite columnist.

Welcome to the dystopian soap opera of modern times. Travel to space with Lauren Sanchez and Katy Perry, let the waters close over you as Bear Grylls baptises Russell Brand in the Thames, and experience the full body impact of the Gwyneth Paltrow ski massacre trial. Lettuce also remember Liz Truss, meet the guy they called “No-Drama Starmer”, and celebrate the inaugural winner of the Fifa Peace Prize as he threatens to annex countries and follows all the way through on starting wars. Experience the magic of Donald Trump’s cavalcade of henchmen, watch with nothing but optimism as our Silicon Valley overlords hit their imperial phase – and let your jaw drop as Brooklyn secedes from the Beckhams.

Truly, these are times that make you want to put your hands over your eyes, even when your hands are already over your eyes. The only thing to do is read Marina Hyde’s Guardian columns and howl with laughter.

‘This country’s foremost living satirist.’ Vogue

‘Hyde’s columns are the solid-silver lining of Britain’s political shitstorm.’ Caitlin Moran

Some people move to the big city hoping to find themselves – Sickan Hermansson isn’t leaving it up to chance.

Twenty-one, friendless, without money but not without hope, Sickan’s arrival at Stockholm University represents a new start. Her lonely childhood in a small southern town has left her utterly unprepared for intimacy: for friends, for sex, for love even. But Sickan is determined to build a new version of herself from the ground up, to make up for lost time.

To simply be normal. Just as Sickan seems to be finding her first ever friends, in whose company she finally feels safe, she meets Abbe: beautiful, charming – and by some miracle he wants her too. Unlike Sickan, Abbe seems completely at ease in his own skin. A solid foundation then, on which to build a relationship? Maybe?

What A Time To Be Alive is a story of class, sex, loneliness, and the trials of young womanhood. But above all, it’s a story of firsts: the first party you’re actually invited to, the first moment you fall in love, the first time you betray a friend. The first time you ask yourself, how much of myself am I willing to sacrifice, to finally fit in?