What a Time to Be Alive!: Scenes from a Strange Age

by Marina Hyde

Please note this audio has been updated as of 5 October 2026

*Read by the author and co-host of the smash hit podcast The Rest is Entertainment*

**FEATURING A BONUS Q&A WITH RICHARD OSMAN**

*** THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ***

'Our funniest, sharpest writer on the great British unraveling' Jon Ronson

'Enthralling, devastating, hilarious, envy-inducing prose' Sathnam Sanghera

'You gobble it up far too quickly and then feel a bit guilty about how delicious it was' Dawn French

'She's a genius, and there should be a statue of her in every town in the land' Dominic Sandbrook

Marina Hyde has been one of Britain's favourite columnists for over two decades. What a Time to Be Alive! is her final Guardian column collection and is a welcome blast of humour and sanity in an unhinged era .

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 - and bid farewell to - 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

Genres: Nonfiction

Audible Audio

Published September 22, 2026

Reviews

[Maggie Timlin]

The joy of a Marina Hyde column is a beautiful turn of phrase. Let me elaborate.
I should first say that I enjoy Marina’s political columns, she raises a smile even with some pretty dire material, but the ones that had me laughing out loud were the ones about celebrity culture. In the first chapter the book presents you with is a reminder of that time Gwenyth Paltrow skied into someone and ended up in court embroiled in a gloriously low stakes case . Marina’s joy in the absolute nonsense of it all leaps off the page.
Then she goes on to describe the Blue Origin flight into space which took Lauren Snachez, Katie Perry et al, somewhere out there. She lampoons these people as a group who get to do something amazing but who don’t have the vocabulary to describe it to us. It is all relayed in wows! And Oh My God’s! Then, practically on the next page, Marina has the audacity to describe Lauren Sanchez’s wedding to Jeff Bezos in Venice as a gathering of ‘Instagram’s apex predators’. Hats off to the author.
One of the things that kept pulling me up short about this collection is how recent everything was. The Twitter flight to Blue Sky, surely that was about five years ago? No it was just November 2024 you say! How about that Blue Origin flight? That took place just last year, well blow me down with a feather.
If you would like to squint at past events, from over the top of a cushion, whilst hiding behind a sofa, with a snarky friend taking the mickey out of everything for you, then this is going to be the book for you.

Thank you to the publisher for a review copy of this book.

[Jim Bowen]

Marina Hyde is an opinion piece writer (most recently for The Guardian), and podcaster who, along with Richard Osman, comments on entertainment a couple of times a week. This book is the second published collection of her articles. They cover the last four years.

I’ve never read Ms Hyde’s writings, and assumed that she wrote about the entertainment industry, because of her podcast. I was wrong. The articles printed here, which are grouped thematically (the injustices surrounding the Post Office computer system, and the Royal Family for example) are often political in nature. When they aren’t they are commenting on society generally.

The other thing that surprised me was the humour involved. I think humour often makes articles easier to read, but I was surprised how caustic she could be. It’s an enjoyable read, but the humour make it feel a little too much if you read a lot of the articles back-to-back-to-back, which I did.

[John]

There are two reviews already on this book that are far better than anything I could write so my recommendation is to read these instead of this. However, I really did enjoy this book and Hyde's writing and turn of phrase really helps to capture the absurdity of the moments and times we've been living through. Not sure if living through or been subjected to is the correct phrase to employ.