First published on the anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new writings - a fitting tribute to the author, and an essential contribution to the discussion of war, peace and humanity's tendency towards violence. Imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humour, the pieces range from a visceral non-fiction recollection of the destruction of Dresden - to a painfully funny short story about three soldiers and their fantasies of the perfect meal.

"Reads like a madcap Montaigne on acid" - Metro

"The most entertaining of American writers, almost a new Mark Twain...his words can travel on through time" - Daily Mail

"The wittiest man since Groucho Marx and the wisest since Karl Marx" - The Times

"Imbued with the innocence, empathy, and kindness that always seemed central to Vonnegut's sensibility" - Lionel Shriver, Financial Times

"(Vonnegut) was a splendid preacher of American populism at its most radical...always funny and sometimes refreshingly vulgar" - Independent

"The best of these unpublished pieces are as mad, bitter, hilarious and, in their healthy disrespect not only for 'Get Tough America' but for humanity in general, as startlingly timely as the best of his output" - Daily Telegraph

"You should buy this book" - Spectator

"Dark, funny and disturbing" - London Review of Books

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. An army intelligence scout during the Second World War, he was captured by the Germans and witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five. After the war he worked as a police reporter, an advertising copywriter and a public relations man for General Electric. His first novel Player Piano (1952) achieved underground success. Cat's Cradle (1963) was hailed by Graham Greene as 'one of the best novels of the year by one of the ablest living authors'. His eighth book, Slaughterhouse-Five was published in 1969 and was a literary and commercial success, and was made into a film in 1972. Vonnegut is the author of thirteen other novels, three collections of stories and five non-fiction books. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007.