Thuy Tram's diary has been described as "the Vietnamese Anne Frank", combining vivid depiction of the violence and dreadful conditions of the conflict with a moving, very personal account'

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is a book to be read by all and included in any course on the literature of war

The most compelling, honest account of a conflict that killed, by some estimates, between two and three million Vietnamese and other Asians, as well as 58,000 Americans...Raw with human emotions and unvarnished by government propaganda.

A personal dialogue, a place to shelter her soul and her spirit...Raw emotion is manifest in the diary.

Remarkable...This is an important and profoundly moving book, which redresses the one-sided macho and gun-toting coverage of the Vietnam War.

In a society increasingly consumed with economic growth and material goods, the book has revived a sense of idealism. Written in a simple but powerful style, it reminds war veterans of their sacrifices and educates a new generation - born after the war's end - about the hardships their elders faced.

This combination of revolutionary fervor with the vulnerabilities and self-doubts of a too-sensitive young woman might be called ideology with a human face, reminding readers that it was people like them, trapped in a moment of history, who died on their behalf.

The fascinating diary of a young Viet Cong doctor who died in the Vietnam War.

A remarkable true story

Here we go again: the self-deception, the corruption of intelligence, and the abuse of authority, amid a full cast of the usual suspects in the White House and the Pentagon. It's a crucially important story, and it comes wonderfully alive in Curveball. It would be almost fun to read if the message wasn't so important-and so devastating to the integrity of the American processes.

pacey, insightful and compelling

Miranda Carter writes with lusty humour, has a fresh clarifying intelligence, and a sharp eye for telling details. This is traditional narrative history with a 21st-century zing. A real corker of a book

A highly original way of looking at the years that led up to 1914

Carter deftly interpolates history with psychobiography to provide a damning indictment of monarchy in all its forms

A depiction of bloated power and outsize personalities in which Carter picks apart the strutting absurdity of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe

Takes what should have been a daunting subject and through sheer wit and narrative élan turns it into engaging drama. Carter has a notable gift for characterisation