Book of the Year

A 2024 literary highlight in the Sunday Times, BBC, Grazia, Dazed, Sunday Express, GQ, i-D, Stylist, Bookseller and Literary Friction

'Outrageously brilliant' ELEANOR CATTON

'Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic' MAX PORTER

'Thought-provoking and horribly clever' ALICE WINN

'Funny, moving, original, intelligent, beautifully written' NATHAN FILER

'Electric, charming, whimsical and strange' EMILY HENRY

'Within the first couple of pages I was gripped' KATE MOSSE

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?

'I have always known that a woman's greatest power is her looks. For most of my life, I just took it as the way things were, a fact not worth interrogating since it was so obviously true.'

For her entire life, Lucinda's mission was to look as hot as possible. She nipped, tucked, bleached, cut, plucked, plumped, shaved, lasered, tanned, crunched, squatted and starved. Then, she broke.

All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot is a funny, provocative retrospective on the last thirty years of Western beauty standards. From Victoria's Secret to Extreme Makeover, Playboy Bunnies to the Australian media's fascination with Lara Bingle, Lucinda unfurls the tentacles of a culture hellbent on making women feel like happiness is always just five kilos away.

With her offbeat humour and incisive cultural commentary, Lucinda tells the unfiltered story of someone overcoming an eating disorder and rebuilding, illuminating our enduring obsession with appearance by holding a bedazzled mirror up to her own beliefs.

A hilarious, insightful deep dive into self image, desirability, pop-culture and power.

'A book for the modern woman, laced with unflinching, glorious honesty.' Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews, co-founders of Shameless Media

'A funny, real interrogation of Australia's body image problem, and a call to arms to dismantle diet culture.' Chantelle Otten, author and sexologist

'A feminist manifesto, a younger millennial gospel, with unparalleled candour and self awareness. I inhaled this book - it's going to be big.' Jessie Stephens

'Brilliant, funny and brutally honest, this is a must-read for anyone trying to navigate through this incredibly complex, image-obsessed age.' Myf Warhurst

'If Tina Fey and David Sedaris had a child, it would be a book ... this book.' Ryan Shelton

'My book of the year. Whip-smart. Hilarious. Honest ... Lucinda is a genius who captures and melds the deeply serious and deeply funny in a way few writers can.' Hannah Ferguson