The Premonitions Bureau: A Sunday Times bestseller

Review A stunning piece of work. Brimming with mystery and suffused with haunting atmosphere, The Premonitions Bureau is the tale of a team of midcentury investigators who set out to answer some of life's most imponderable questions. With calm rationality and a keen sense of pacing, Sam Knight relates the extraordinary story of this initiative to study those among us who appear to be able to predict the future -- and in particular, to predict disaster. An enveloping, unsettling book, gorgeously written and profound. -- Patrick Radden Keefe, bestselling author of SAY NOTHING and EMPIRE OF PAIN An extraordinary story. -- Emma Brockes ― Guardian A propulsive, atmospheric story, featuring a cast of strange characters, a series of unnerving coincidences and several apparently foretold disasters . . . [that] also touches on rich and fascinating themes. ― New Statesman Magnificent . . . I have a feeling - you might even call it a premonition - that a lot of people will really enjoy it. ― Daily Mail A fluent and enticing book, skilfully navigating the tricky and marginal subject of the paranormal; it is beautifully ordered, humane, capacious. -- Hilary Mantel A terrifically insightful book, unusual in all its aspects. Readers will love it for its brilliant sense of storytelling and its fierce interest in character. I was knocked out by the precision and drama of it all, by the book's comprehension of our deepest dreads and our relentless bid to control them. -- Andrew O'Hagan The Premonitions Bureau is an eerie and amazing account of coincidence and fate, and the impossibility of knowing the difference. I loved this fascinating book. -- Emma Cline, bestselling author of THE GIRLS: A NOVEL Take the addictive storytelling of Patrick Radden Keefe and mix it with the stranger-than-fiction stuff of a Jon Ronson podcast, and you'll get Sam Knight's must-read first book ... A spooky, gripping read about the difference between fate and coincidence. ― Evening Standard The Premonitions Bureau is a remarkable book, telling the story of a remarkable man - John Barker - through a unique blend of history, biography, and the modern science of how the brain's predictions shape our worlds and control our bodies. Occasionally disconcerting, completely compelling and beautifully written - Sam Knight will take you an unforgettable journey into a history of predicting the future. -- Anil Seth Wonderful . . . fascinating characters, stories and ideas -- Mark Haddon Enthralling: a work of inspired, tireless and deeply compassionate curiosity. -- Helen Garner [Knight] combines a flair for American narrative non-fiction in the tradition of David Grann, Janet Malcolm and Joan Didion, with an absurdist lens on British life . . . his gin-clear prose . . . seems to have the freedom of fiction. ― The Times It is a story both elegant and eccentric, cleanly capturing that brief moment in the 1960s when extrasensory perception verged on mainstream acceptance. It is also quietly terrifying, a reminder that even those who can see the future have no hope of getting out of its way. ― New York Times Endlessly readable. . . richly researched . . . it tells a tantalising tale of the unlikely interplay between the press, psychiatry and the paranormal in Britain during the late 1960s. His flair for synthesis and compression keeps the reader riveted. ― Guardian New Yorker writer Knight tells this fascinating story with his typically enjoyable combination of fastidious research and an ear for the absurd ― Esquire, The Best Books of 2022 Product Description **A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** ** Chosen as a Book of the Year in the Times, Observer, Telegraph, Irish Times, Stylist and iPaper ** 'A stunning piece of work' Patrick Radden Keefe 'Beautifully ordered, humane, capacious' Hilary Mantel 'An eerie and amazing account of coincidence and fate' Emma Cline 'Completely compelling and beautifully written' Anil Seth The story of a strange experiment - a journey into