A melancholy and exquisitely bizarre essay on fame, morality and the vanity of human wishes

Moving and original... Julia Blackburn writes like an angel

Pure enchantment, stranger than fiction

Nuanced ... Sandbrook has rummaged deep into the cultural life of the era to remind us how rich it was, from Bowie to Dennis Potter, Martin Amis to William Golding

Sharply and fluently written ... entertaining ... By making you quite nostalgic for the present, Sandbrook has done a public service

Devine has brought a greater understanding to this fascinating subject and offers an intriguing perspective on a key component of our history and national identity

Figes has achieved something extraordinary ... the gulag story lacks individuals for us to sympathise with: a Primo Levi, an Anne Frank or even an Oskar Schindler. Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that ... the kind of love that most of us can only dream of

Remarkable ... Figes, selecting and then interpreting this mass of letters, makes them tell two kinds of story. The first is a uniquely detailed narrative of the gulag, of the callous, slatternly universe which consumed millions of lives ... The second is about two people determined not to lose each other

A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating

Orlando Figes has wrought something beautiful from dark times

A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance

[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story