'Daniel Kalder has slogged his way through the 20th century's Krakatoa-like eruption of despotic verbiage so you don't have to... Kalder's dispatches from the transnational empire of ultra-boredom are not only very funny, they also form a quirky, pacey guide to recent world history.'
*
Sunday Times, Books of the Year *
'Full of...wonders, and startling individual facts... An overwhelmingly powerful reminder of 20th-century misrule, and of just how delusional human beings can be - especially if they're literate.'
*
Telegraph *
'This wonderfully entertaining book is a cautionary tale about how societies are easily wooed by foolish demagogues spouting gibberish.'
*
The Times, Books of the Year *
'I enjoyed this book a great deal...it's actually a rather snappy read.'
* Will Self,
Guardian *
'Hugely compelling...Like coming across a planet-sized car crash, with hundreds of millions snarled up in the wreckage: you can't look away. Kalder has really dug deep into the minds of these infernal texts' creators, and thus delivers some truly enlightening insights.'
*
Irish Independent *
'Daniel Kalder...deserves a medal...Dictator Literature is a great book... An insightful book, but also a funny one.'
*
The Times *
'Very funny... After reading Dictator Literature you will never look at books with such a benevolent eye again.'
*
Spectator *
'A engaging, brisk, and morbidly humorous haul of the lives and literary pretensions of the murderous wingnuts who defined a century.'
*
Irish Times *
'Kalder's book is an informative, lively and often hilarious account of some of the worst authors who ever lived, doubling as a history of the terrible ideologies that marred the last century. Some execrable books have come out of communism and fascism, but Dictator Literature is certainly not one of them.'
*
Catholic Herald *
'A fascinating study...partly an enjoyable romp but mostly a sombre sidelong-glance history of 20th-century totalitarianism.'
*
Sunday Telegraph *
'Brisk, and full of antic fun.'
*
New Statesman *
'Highly readable.'
*
Herald *
'A mesmerizing study of books by despots great and small, from the familiar to the largely unknown.'
*
Washington Post *
'Kalder is our cheeky and irreverent guide to the (generally aggressively tedious) prose by history's despots.'
*
Tatler *
'This is about the most discomforting book I've read in the past year. Never mind Trump and never mind Twitter: Kalder demonstrates that words themselves, and the escapist spells we weave with them, are our riskiest civic gift.'
-- Simon Ings, author of
Stalin and the Scientists'A compelling examination of why bad minds create bad writing, and therefore a valuable read for anyone interested in literature - or the world, in fact. Kalder's dry humour makes Dictator Literature a fun tour de force through the mad history of the 20th century and the present.'
-- Norman Ohler, author of
Blitzed