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One of Literary Hub’s ‘Most Anticipated Books of 2025’ One of the BBC’s ’40 Most Exciting Books to Read in 2025’ Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power. “Original, vital, and unputdownable.”—Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.