Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Mortality

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 5,159 ratings · 855 reviews

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "from the country of the well across the stark frontier th...more

Hardcover, 104 pages

Published September 4th 2012 by Twelve (first published September 1st 2012)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Amazon's Books of the Year: Top 100 Picks for 2012

6th out of 100 books — 135 voters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Last 10 Nonfiction Books I Read

9th out of 519 books — 95 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Sep 22, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, non-fiction, essays, religion, death, philosophy

Wow. He did it. He did dying just as he did living.
He faced his mortality with a steadfast gaze, as well as his trademark wit, humour, and incessant curiosity. His real most deep-seated fear was of losing his ability to express himself, of not being able to talk or to write.
He does still get the last word. I love that this book comes out posthumously. It's as if he is talking to us right now: "And another thing!"
His wife Carol Blue wrote a moving afterword in which she described their 'new wor...more

50 likes · like · see review

Oct 05, 2012 Darwin8u rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

This short collection of writings done by Christopher Hitchens detailing his experience with cancer, dying and mortality reminds me in no little way of a 21st century Montaigne. While I was expecting Hitchen's stoic materialism to jump off the page, I was also surprised by his gentleness. This is a man who loved life. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved to think, to write and to speak. Is there any greater testament to a life well-lived than to read or listen to a man's final wor...more

17 likes · like · see review

Mar 31, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Michael by: Kris

Shelves: death-and-dying, essays, memoir, non-fiction, cancer

A book on the dark subject of death that lightens the load with straight shots of clarity, honesty, and a form of wisdom. For those who loved the cultural critic Hitchens as a voice of truth that perfectly balanced logic and wit, fear not the potentials for emotional devastation in this discourse on his own process of death from esophageal cancer. It’s short enough to be read in one sitting and contains no self-pity. He gave me some courage about my own mortality.

The book contains several essays...more A book on the dark subject of death that lightens the load with straight shots of clarity, honesty, and a form of wisdom. For those who loved the cultural critic Hitchens as a voice of truth that perfectly balanced logic and wit, fear not the potentials for emotional devastation in this discourse on his own process of death from esophageal cancer. It’s short enough to be read in one sitting and contains no self-pity. He gave me some courage about my own mortality.

The book contains several essays inspired by his condition published in his usual venue of “Vanity Fair”. At first, he surprises himself by a relatively unemotional outlook:

I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal it bores even me. ... To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

He brilliantly delves into the language of cancer, such as the metaphors of the patient being seen as fighting a battle or subject to an alien invasion. He fights back effectively against those who publicly proclaim he was being punished for blasphemy (he published the book: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything). He explores the paradoxes of prayer with riffs along the lines of Ambrose Bierce’s definition in The Devil’s Dictionary: “A petition that the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner; himself confessedly unworthy.” He moves toward some rules of etiquette for personal communications with someone who is dying, which is challenged by finding a pathway between throwing out lines of false hope and excessive advice and the overstepping bounds to claim exact knowledge of what one’s friend is going through. In one essay, he renders an outstanding analysis of the quicksand in the Nietsche precept of “that which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

Despite the poor prognosis, Hitchens took the route of chemo and radiation, which he likens to torture. His drive to live is uplifting, but far from Rausch’s path in his “The Last Lecture”, which he felt “should bear its own health warning: so sugary you may need an insulin shot to withstand it”. The inexorable progress of his disease and side effects of treatment are not dwelled upon, but are covered enough to highlight the wisdom of his conclusion: “I do not have a body, I am my body.” To me, his dread of losing his voice is his most poignant expression of his fears, as his explanation of why his sense of self resides so much in that sphere of expression, even in his writings, is exactly what we fans most mourn.

Short though this book is, it should be a lasting testament to what it means to be human. Some of the themes he touches on can be explored more fully in books such as Sontag’s examination of blaming the victim in Illness as Metaphor and Ehrenheit’s attack on the cult of positive thinking in Smile or Die. Instead, this book for me feels like listening to a friend, and the art of that, when properly recognized, makes good on Hitchen's effort to defeat the erasing power of mortality. Talking to his readers well seems to be a core of what he's after, suggested by his comment on a most favored response from a reader: "The most satisfying compliment a reader can pay is to tell me that he or she feels personally addressed."

(less)

30 likes · like · see review

Sep 03, 2012 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir, essays, nonfiction

This is proving very hard to write about.

Hitch was a writer, to his core. I know this just through the sense of his writings - that's how I met so many other interesting people. It was something which defined him.

To this extent, it's not too surprising that new books come out after he has passed. This little collection of essays are meditative, a little self-pitying, but mostly as dignified as cancer would let him be. Fierce and stoic, almost up to the very end.

He was funny, provocative, and ch...more

25 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2013 Philip rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, non-fiction

Hitchens writes: "If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does." -pg. 91.

There's no denying the integrity in his life, nor the intellect and wit in his speaking and writing.

But what can I make of this book? It was an easy enough read, but the fact that we're approaching the topic from two diametrically opposed worldviews made it challenging. Is it enough that we respect one another, or give some semblance of respect?

I've watched Hitchens debate religion an...more

7 likes · like · see review

Jan 22, 2013 Ray Hartley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This short (just over 100 pages) book is last written by Christopher Hitchens as he entered the final stages of cancer. It is an unsentimental treatment of the experience of dying in which Hitchens dismisses well-intentioned but painful offerings of comfort with an intellect that remains powerful and confident even as his body weakens. Hitchens is adamant that he is not fighting cancer. It's the other way round, and it is a fight that he cannot win. He turns to Nietzsche, Mencken and Auden to de...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 10, 2013 Filipa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: english-books, non-fiction, sas, 2013-reads, 5-stars, own

Christopher Hitchens, conhecido autor e jornalista, relata neste seu livro de memórias, a sua batalha contra o cancro. Mas este não é o típico livro de memórias. É certamente mais que isso. É um livro que traz à luz reflexões sobre o que é estar naquele espaço de tempo que não é propriamente vida, mas que também não é morte. É aquele interlúdio em que ainda temos esperança de vencer a morte, mas sabemos que não estaremos vivos por muito tempo. Christopher Hitchens, ao contar a sua experiência co...more
Christopher Hitchens, conhecido autor e jornalista, relata neste seu livro de memórias, a sua batalha contra o cancro. Mas este não é o típico livro de memórias. É certamente mais que isso. É um livro que traz à luz reflexões sobre o que é estar naquele espaço de tempo que não é propriamente vida, mas que também não é morte. É aquele interlúdio em que ainda temos esperança de vencer a morte, mas sabemos que não estaremos vivos por muito tempo. Christopher Hitchens, ao contar a sua experiência contra o cancro do esófago fala-nos não só de como é errado temer a morte, mas como é igualmente errado não lutar pela vida. Também nos fala sobre religião, numa altura em que seria esperado, quase, que este ateísta reconhecido, se virasse agora para a religião como forma de consolo e de abrigo. E acima de tudo, Christopher relata com uma honestidade brutal, que a morte anda de mãos dadas com a vida.

Há livros que nos aparecem ao longo da vida e que tornam nossos companheiros para sempre. Não sabemos bem como é que eles se cruzam no nosso caminho, nem porquê, mas sabemos que de alguma forma, foram perfeitos para a altura em que entraram na nossa vida. Foi o que me aconteceu com este Mortalidade de Christopher Hitchens. Já tinha ouvido falar no autor, mas na verdade, não sabia que ele tinha lutado contra o cancro e quando este livro me veio parar às mãos, não poderia saber o quanto ele poderia vir a significar para mim. E acabei por ser surpreendida. Muito, aliás.
Este é daqueles exemplos fantásticos que nos mostram que os livros não se medem pelas páginas que têm. E em pouco mais de 100 páginas este livro conseguiu abalar o meu mundo de forma indescritível.
Se me pedirem para descrever este livro, não o vou conseguir fazer. Mas uma coisa é certa, é daqueles pequenos tesouros que são impossíveis esquecer. E que valem a pena reler.

O conceito de morte é um que consegue ser real e intangível ao mesmo tempo. A resposta parece óbvia. Todos nós sabemos o que ela é, todos nós sabemos o que esta implica. Mas não conseguimos realmente compreendê-la a não ser que já tenhamos passado por isso. E enfim, se realmente passámos por esta experiência, não estaremos por cá para contar a outrem como é que ela é.
Por isso mesmo, o conceito de morte e o estado mortal é algo que nos define a todos nós por natureza. Desde sempre que tentamos lutar contra o nosso estatuto mortal e desde sempre que tentamos tirar algum sentido da palavra morte.
Até hoje, aquilo que conseguimos fazer foi estender o período de vida e evitar a morte o máximo possível. Mas, façamos o que fizermos, ao fim da estrada, quem nos cumprimenta é a Morte. Não há volta a dar, diga a ciência o que disser.
E o mais assustador de tudo é que este é um processo que não podemos controlar. Pelo menos não completamente. Todos os dias lidamos com morte e não há de facto nenhum critério de selecção.
Aqueles que ficam lidam com as suas consequências e com o tempo, vamos aprendendo a lidar com os efeitos secundários que ela nos traz.

Mas pior do que lidar com a morte... como é que podemos lidar com o período de tempo que está no meio? Aquele em que sabemos que o nosso corpo está prestes a desistir mas o intelecto não? Aquele em que lutamos por ficar cá, mas que sabemos lá no fundo que o tempo se está a esgotar?
Este interlúdio parece por vezes pior que a própria morte, ao ponto de desejarmos realmente a morte.
É um interlúdio dolorosamente real. Os melhores amigos são os médicos, as enfermeiras e os hospitais. A dor torna-se o nosso companheiro de cama. E contudo, queremos lutar pela vida. Porque nos parece óbvio que não queremos deixar este mundo. Mas, o que é mais assustador? Ficar ou ir? Estar sem realmente estar?

Sinceramente, não sei. (less)

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 13, 2013 Joao rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Avassalador! Escrito durante os 19 meses em que esteve doente com cancro, Hitchens continua corajosamente a defender, ��s portas da morte, o que sempre defendeu toda a vida e confronta-nos com a nossa pr��pria mortalidade.

"Ao longo da minha vida, j�� tinha acordado, mais de uma vez, com a sensa��o de morte. Nada, no entanto, me havia preparado para a madrugada de junho em que acordei a sentir-me realmente preso dentro do meu pr��prio cad��ver."

"�� pergunta absurda ��Porqu�� eu?��, o cosmos mal...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 09, 2012 Lena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, non-fiction

Whatever one's opinion on Christopher Hitchens' religious views, it's indisputable that the man can write. This collection of essays was penned after his diagnosis of terminal esophageal cancer and before his untimely death.

The focus of this book is more about his experience of dying of cancer than anything else, but his chapter on the varying responses of Christians to his diagnosis is among the richest in the book. The contrast between those who gleefully indulged in their belief that this wa...more

9 likes · like · see review

Nov 14, 2012 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, philosophy, psychology, favorites

Christopher Hitchens died a year ago next month (Dec. 2011). These rememberances are of the eighteen months he spent preparing for death and hoping for life. His terminal diagnosis was esophageal cancer, a hideous disease that effects the ability to speak. Although wisdom is everywhere present in his last essays for Vanity Fair reproduced in MORTALITY, it is to this loss that he addresses so intimately that I wish to share.

"Most despond-inducing and alarming of all, so far, was the moment when m...more Christopher Hitchens died a year ago next month (Dec. 2011). These rememberances are of the eighteen months he spent preparing for death and hoping for life. His terminal diagnosis was esophageal cancer, a hideous disease that effects the ability to speak. Although wisdom is everywhere present in his last essays for Vanity Fair reproduced in MORTALITY, it is to this loss that he addresses so intimately that I wish to share.

"Most despond-inducing and alarming of all, so far, was the moment when my voice suddenly rose to a childish piping squeak. It then began to register all over the place, from a gruff and husky whisper to a papery, plaintive bleat. And at times it threatened to disappear altogether.

Like health itself, the loss of such a thing can't be imagined until it occurs. Depravation of the ability to speak is more like an attack of impotence, or the amputation of part of the personality. To a great degree, in public and private, I "was" my voice. I could once recite poetry and quote prose and was sometimes even asked to do so. I could turn a line for a laugh, or ridicule an opponent. I LIVED FOR MOMENTS LIKE THAT. Now if I want to enter a conversation, I have to attract attention in some other way..."

He continues to give weight to the ability to speak saying, "If I had been robbed of my voice earlier, I doubt that I could ever have achieved much on the page." He credits advice he was given thirty-five years ago from a Guardian comtemporary who told him that an article he wrote was well argued but dull..."write more like the way you talk".

"For me, to remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off; the ones that made the sacrifice of the following day a trivial one." He then adds:

"They told me Heraclitus; they told me you were dead.
They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed.
I wept when I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky."

This is the way Callimachus chose to remember his beloved Heraclitus. But then adds:

"Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take."

Christopher was like the Enlightenment's Voltaire. An extraordinary intellect, a rational mind that rejected superstition, and passion...speaking from his head fueled by his heart. He is greatly missed. Highest Recommendation! FAVORITE!(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Nov 29, 2012 Erik Simon rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the Foreword of this little pamphlet of a book, Graydon Carter claims that it contains some of Hitchens' best writing, which are pretty strong words, but he's not wrong. A sample:

In one way, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper int...more

7 likes · like · see review

Apr 02, 2013 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Diana by: Cheryl

Shelves: favorites

Reading this book I wanted to understand how terminal illness really felt not for morbid reasons but for true empathy. Who other than Hitch could I trust to fling away euphemism & give me the honest truth? Hitch does so remarkably but you can't help but mourn the tragedy of it as he recounts his dashed hopes with new treatments and his fears of losing his voice.

Painfully, Carol Blue's Afterword reveals how his death in the end on December 15, 2011 was unexpected, that he was charismatic eve...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 08, 2012 Xox rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I got this on Kindle. 1/3.

He talked quite freely about his illness, and the reaction he got from the Christian faithful. Really good as it is in his voice (I could hear his voice in my head when I read this thin book.)

2/3

The later part he talked about rude persons he met on saying all the wrong thing to him. And how losing his voice is the thing that bothered him the most. He ended the voice saying he wants his "freedom of speech".

It is heartbreaking to see a great man going throw pain and me...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jun 18, 2013 Sami rated it 5 of 5 stars

A re-read - not for any especially gloomy reason but for a life-affirming one.
Christopher Hitchens dispatching from the front lines of death is as clear-eyed and genuinely moving an account of the end as I've ever read. Pitiless in his documentation of a tortuous decline, it's hard reading at times and hard to remember what a fierce, fearless, fine mind is gone. Contrarian in life, his book about his own dying illustrates the deep contradictions of death, and what death means to the living. To...more

like · see review

Jun 17, 2013 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set aside the automatic -- Hitchens's words are always to be relished -- I have some minor beefs with this recording:

At under two hours (which includes the two lengthy and welcome addenda by Hitchens's Vanity Fair editor and by his widow) Mortality doesn't exactly qualify as a book. (How the print version manages 128 pages is something I must investigate on my next trip to Barnes & Noble!)

Having heard Hitchens himself read both God Is Not Great and Hitch-22, (twice each so far, but who count...more

like · see review

Jun 06, 2013 Christopher Carbone rated it 4 of 5 stars

The final book written by Christopher Hitchens chronicles Hitchen’s last illness- esophageal cancer – through his essays (mostly written for Vanity Faire). A very honest and frank discussion of what its like to be fatally ill from Hitch’s explanation of the first day feeling truly sick to the last lucid days of his life. The story also melts away the pabulum and saccharine we often read with those with fatal illnesses: Hitchen’s describes the helplessness one feels when he is told that he is “ba...more

like · see review

Apr 18, 2013 MG Mason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Published just after his death, this is a short book (or lengthy essay depending on how you look at it) about a man coming to terms with his own impending death at the hands of lung cancer. Christopher Hitchens was a polemicist, a political commentator, an eloquent writer and deeply thoughtful human being who was just at home with a cutting remark against his opponents as he was with proseltyzing atheistic philosophy.

This is a poignant chronicle of the final months of the life of "The Hitch" yet...more Published just after his death, this is a short book (or lengthy essay depending on how you look at it) about a man coming to terms with his own impending death at the hands of lung cancer. Christopher Hitchens was a polemicist, a political commentator, an eloquent writer and deeply thoughtful human being who was just at home with a cutting remark against his opponents as he was with proseltyzing atheistic philosophy.

This is a poignant chronicle of the final months of the life of "The Hitch" yet far from being full of platitudes, "poor me" and outpourings of anger, it is often delightful and typically in Hitch fashion, darkly humorous. He laments the lost opportunity of writing the obituaries of life's villains such as Joseph Ratzinger (which is an amusing statement and one that only Hitch would dare to utter and no doubt would have utterly destroyed the character of the man). With the recent abdication of Ratzinger and the death of Margaret Thatcher, we all wish he would have lived that little bit longer to offer his choice words.

I had to chuckle at the early statement at the revelation that he would succumb to cancer, commenting that he found it "banal and rather predictable" almost as though he'd want to die of something amusing and unconventional to blindside him and make the process a bit more interesting. Only The Hitch could say something like that, get away with it, and have you sympathising - not with his death - but with his irritation that it wasn't something more memorable.

He does not want you to take pity on him as he shares his journey and nor should you. It is commented in the foreward that he was a compulsive writer so this isn't so much as an appeal for sympathy, nor for the desire to be thought of as a saint, but carrying on doing something that he loves. He sometimes goes as far as berating himself for what he perceives to be moments of self-pity, even if they do not appear so to the reader.

Aware that as many religious figures had prayed for his recovery or to reach peace in the inevitable as gloated at his impending demise, he writes the most thorough deconstruction of prayer, the most convincing argument that it is not only useless but pointless and even contradictory to the religious philosophies of the factions that offer them.

It is rare that a chronicle of a dying can make you shed more tears of laughter than of sorrow but this, the last great work of Christopher Hitchens, does just that. Recommended reading for anybody with an interest in reflecting on our own mortality. The volume is unfortunately unfinished at the time of his death and it includes a collection of paragraphs and notes that would have been worked into free-flowing text. Despite this incomplete state, it is satisfying and had an afterword by his widow.

See more book reviews at my blog (less)

like · see review

Apr 15, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-biography

(Abbreviated, obviously, and this review makes allowances for that.)

What is here of Hitchens' final book is of a piece with all his writing: relentlessly clear-eyed, articulate about all kinds of awful things that usually mute lesser writers, and enriched by such a vastly well-read mind that he makes even a brief essay about, say, a phlebotomist's troubles finding a vein into a meditation on how torture works its subtler evils.

Was a bit annoyed by what appears to be an editorial oversight: The...more

like · see review

Feb 19, 2013 Miz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: escapisms-from-yr-4

I'm jet-setting in and out of the waking life, literally, my eyes open just as the plane lifts off from the terminal tracks. I am heading toward the "Sunshine State" they call it, others: A Place to Die. But I am not aware of where i am going as i easily flip through the pages of "Mortality".

When I land we head towards the hospital, where I have living proof of Christopher Hitchens' mortality; (but right before a conversation on American--pardon, privatized health care [and paying for organs in...more I'm jet-setting in and out of the waking life, literally, my eyes open just as the plane lifts off from the terminal tracks. I am heading toward the "Sunshine State" they call it, others: A Place to Die. But I am not aware of where i am going as i easily flip through the pages of "Mortality".

When I land we head towards the hospital, where I have living proof of Christopher Hitchens' mortality; (but right before a conversation on American--pardon, privatized health care [and paying for organs in Canada.]) There, volunteers pigeon cold plastic lunchboxes with necessary parts, and wheelchairs are pushed into elevators with patients bound to face the back wall of the shaft. And my eyes begin to see who Hitchens calls "the Well"', and we are them; slowly conditioning the unwell into our ill reality. In these tiny elevators between corridors, what appears to be safe-havens from the look, feel and smell of a hospital are until, a wife asks her husband, in the echoing shaft dissolving of laughter -- "are you okay?" Because... now he is not.

Either way, I don't know if you have ever had the opportunity to talk to someone who is severely ill, "Tumorous" as Hitchens would say or, dying -- but, we are horrible at it! And this is because of all this godforsaken irony wrapped up in a few prayers Hitchens rejects as useless unless they make me feel happy saying, "hey'man" -- and then, why say it? Yet we wanna know how all those "Unwells" are feeling; what is their pain like even if we can't handle the truth but then ask if they are hungry, and at the same time forget they cannot eat anything that does not drip into their veins, and become -- timid kissers, huggers, criers because we do not want our caring to be the death of them. And I can't help think we are made to die because we are so good at being naturally scared to death of it.

"Mortality" features episodes "lovingly dying" and ultimately revealing the unsubtle ironies that befall the act of dying, while we live so shortly. Dying is torturous! Meaning, life is just as unjust. It is only when we can know how long we have, then we suddenly realize what we truly have not. But I appreciate when dying men bring literature into the equation, and Hitchens does this; and any man who quotes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", is a crab among crabs, to me... scuttling along this golden ocean floor.

Which is and isn't the case at this point in my story. While my relative has IV cords and heart monitors watching his (suddenly,) very noticeably wrinkly body, he is definitely still planning court battles back in Canada, and ignoring still strikingly insignificant, bitter family-relations. It is only an arrogance of mortality that is conveying what he cannot see. As his body reigns over these incurable battles for him, it has the voice that may finally make him see -- and so we wait.

When one is stubborn enough to refute death, the beating heart wins.
And then I can't help think of Collapsible Veins; squinching when the nurse goes in at a vein for the tenth time. And that is what Hitchens taught me today; and then family showed me when we saw his arm. All this is another story. (He even feels the nurse's torment heightened by Collapsible Veins that he told his wife to bring the syringer some chocolates... for all of his inefficiencies. Merci.)

Though the irony i am acknowledging questions my morbid insensitivity, bringing anything to do with "Mortality" into the elderly arms of a place called the "Sunshine State"; in the end, stubbornness is not for the weak -- but it is built like cancer.(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 11, 2013 Leela Devi rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all

Book Review
Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

t is be fitting that thoughts of mortality should crop up at the end of 2012, an eventful year that seemed to have run off too fast.

On New Year’s Day, 2013, I read Christopher Hitchens’ ‘Mortality’ that focused on the last 18 months of Christopher Hitchens’ life of cancer, a time when he lived ‘dyingly’. His father had died at the age of 79 with a similar cancer. A 61 Hitchens felt he could possibly outdo that, live longer than this father. He would li...more

like · see review

Feb 10, 2013 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was only in the last few months of Christopher Hitchens' life that I came to truly appreciate his work. I sincerely regret not receiving a chance to meet him in person, but there is solace in the written legacy he leaves behind. He was an intellectual that I aspire to, and someone who I will continue to discover for years to come. He left us too soon, but his personal and formative influence on many is profound.

The collection of final essays that comprises Mortality is brief, but gripping an...more

like · see review

Jan 29, 2013 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This small book is Christopher Hitchen's record of his year "living dyingly," notes written in the months leading up to his death of esophageal cancer on December 15, 2011. The English-speaking world of recent decades has seen few more articulate and intelligent polemicists than Hitchens. And the positions he argued so passionately (e.g., "there is no god") earned him the respect of some and the hate of others. As he discusses here, many "kind" believers saw his demise as God's punishment and fe...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 28, 2013 Lianne added it

Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens, who wrote for Vanity Fair, the Atlantic magazine, and Slate for many years, pits his spirit and intelligence against the disease and his own mortality. He is famous for being an atheist and confronts cliches about illness and the many euphemisms we use when talking about terminal illness and the "big C." During the eighteen months from his initial diagnosis until his death he continues to write and be engaged with his many circles of collea...more

like · see review

Jan 26, 2013 Kerri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: true-stories

Once upon a time there was a man named Jake. He was tall and kind and always rocked an amusingly dapper mustache, but his mustache wasn't hip or trendy so much as it was just perpetually on his face. His face without a mustache? We can't independently verify such a face ever existed.

He spoke softly and laughed easily and preferred Barbera wine to all others. A Boston native, he was of course a loyal Red Sox fan. He was also smart, a lover of trees, and managed his employees as if they were frie...more Once upon a time there was a man named Jake. He was tall and kind and always rocked an amusingly dapper mustache, but his mustache wasn't hip or trendy so much as it was just perpetually on his face. His face without a mustache? We can't independently verify such a face ever existed.

He spoke softly and laughed easily and preferred Barbera wine to all others. A Boston native, he was of course a loyal Red Sox fan. He was also smart, a lover of trees, and managed his employees as if they were friends and collaborators, and as such, they were verily both. I worked with him daily for four years, and only ever heard him raise his voice once.

An avid cyclist and only a social drinker, he was, from the outside and by most standards, utterly and overwhelmingly healthy. Despite this fact, his liver inexplicably decided to grow tumors, and those tumors decided to play host to malignancy, and so cancer cells spread throughout his body rapidly. Much too rapidly. He fought, and fought some more, and never once complained about rashes affecting his skin and fatigue riddling his radiated bones. He would go in for treatment, amicably and bravely enduring space-age medicine tearing into the cancer cells and into his body, too, and then he'd show up for work the next day, or get on a plane to visit beloved staff and related resources he was overseeing in Italy, China, and beyond.

On Tuesday morning of last week, we lost him. Suddenly and without much warning, to an unexpected bout of sepsis.

As Jake wasn't a prolific writer like Hitchens, I don't know what he believed about passing from this life to whatever it is that comes after. But little, I think, does that matter.

Jake was well-loved, and his life well-lived. So too, it seems, was Hitchens, and so they will both be missed by everyone who knew them.

Addendum: I'm not sure this is the proper place to talk about Jake. But this is the place I have right now and this book is the book I probably shouldn't have read this week, but did, and despite the crying for the first three chapters (or, perhaps because of the crying for the first three chapters), I'm glad I did.

I'm glad I read this book with the loss of Jake still red and raw against my heart, making me feel simultaneously quiet and like I need to shout every feeling from every rooftop, because life is precious and altogether beautiful even as it's cruel and nonsensical, and feelings? Feelings are for shouting. Especially the best ones.

Jake would have been invited to our wedding. I'm thinking about mailing him a save-the-date anyway: A postcard featuring a collage of our favorite faces and places and most especially of love, from us to him, wherever he is or isn't.

[Four stars for brutally and beautifully honest words.](less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 22, 2013 Geoffrey Dow rated it 2 of 5 stars

P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, "There's no such thing as bad press, so long as they spell your name right." But what is one supposed to do when the press is good, but the spelling is not?

Shoot the messenger, bite the hand ... and toot one's own horn, I guess. So damn the clichés and full speed ahead.

I suppose I would better have done all of the above when I first got my complimentary copies of the magazine in the mail back in December, but illness and the press of other business got in the...more

like · see review

Jan 16, 2013 S'hi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

A brief collection of thoughts and essays by a vibrant and witty mind as he comes to terms with the body that he is rather than the body one might say he had. Christopher Hitchens is well-known for his voice in public debates and lectures, book launches and gatherings of friends and colleagues over extended dinners of mind as much as food. Here he also comes to terms with the loss of voice brought on by his esophageal cancer, and the potential loss of written voice as well.

The final chapter may...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 14, 2013 Jon Mountjoy rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lovely, short book, written very much with the voice of Christopher Hitchens, about his cancer and his life. The afterword by his wife was particularly moving. Throughout, his personality shines. Having seen him talk in Edinburgh, and on many YouTube videos, I can just imagine his humour, his will to live and to speak and to regale and prod and learn and, well, be himself.

He's always been immensely quotable, and he paints some lovely (and sometimes very moving) scenes using his quick tongue. H...more

like · see review

Jan 03, 2013 Vivek Tejuja rated it 5 of 5 stars

I guess it is never easy to write about dying. More so, when you know it is coming at you, day by day, almost second by second. Christopher Hitchens, one of the greatest writers that Britain has ever produced and not even the tumor in his esophagus could stop him from writing. I have yet to read one of his greatest works, his memoir, called, Hitch-22, but for me, for now, “Mortality” has been a rollercoaster of a read.

“Mortality” is a book, a short book collecting the essays that Hitchens wrote...more I guess it is never easy to write about dying. More so, when you know it is coming at you, day by day, almost second by second. Christopher Hitchens, one of the greatest writers that Britain has ever produced and not even the tumor in his esophagus could stop him from writing. I have yet to read one of his greatest works, his memoir, called, Hitch-22, but for me, for now, “Mortality” has been a rollercoaster of a read.

“Mortality” is a book, a short book collecting the essays that Hitchens wrote before his death, about his death and the way he felt about everything related to it and how his atheism led to rational thinking and emotion as well. He is honest and painfully so throughout the book. The details of the disease are not given and rightly so (since it is quite private), however at the same time, the pathos is there, the honesty remains and therefore, the connection with the reader.

For me, the connection was in the title. The very word, “Mortality” is unsettling (I am certain that that is the reason it was chosen as the title). It just made me realize about the longevity of our lives and what we can never be sure of. Hitchens gives it as it is and yet at some parts of the book, I found his writing tender and sometimes frustrated. As he says about people providing advice at various stages: “You sometimes feel that you may expire from sheer ADVICE!” This could also be seen as the humourous angle of the book, which doesn’t let go. He knows what he is writing. He is aware of how his physical abilities are declining day after day and yet what he wants the most is the ability to speak (which does become a concern later) and write (which is of a God-like status to the writer).

This book moved me in so many places and in many ways. Hitchens writes without remorse or pity and that is how the book should be and I am glad it turned out this way. The writing is powerful and stuns you in silent contemplation, like a good book should. At the end of it all, Hitchens just shows it the way it is – death and life, the way it is meant to be, probably not sugar-coated like his works aren’t, but true to life. True to the way it impacts people. The way he lived. All that I can say is that I for one, will be reading his other essays now, as this one just proved his genius to me.
(less)

like · see review

Jan 01, 2013 Mike Owens rated it 4 of 5 stars

Most know of Christopher Hitchens' recent death from esophageal cancer (Stage IV, there is no Stage V). Most know of his towering intellect through his writing, lecturing and debating skills. Most know him as one of the most prominent literary figures of our time. Most also know him as a concerned atheist.
This book details his final stages of cancer in first person. He writes in detail of his treatment, his caregivers, those who wish him well and those who don't, because of his rejection of rel...more

like · see review

Dec 30, 2012 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2012-audio-books

Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens, Narrated by Simon Prebble, produced by Hachette Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

This is a collection of Hitchen’s writings from the time he learned that he had esophageal cancer to his death 19 months later. It is preceded by an introduction from a good friend, and there is a postscript by his wife, Carol. At the end of the book are notes that he didn’t get to include in the book before he died on December 15, 2011, and he wrote almost to the very end of hi...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: Mortality: ISBN 9781455502752	2	21	Feb 15, 2013 10:56am
The passing away of a great man and author.	3	70	Jan 04, 2013 08:33am
Goodreads Librari...: someone to look with powers to remove	2	164	Nov 17, 2012 02:31pm

combine
Other Editions (22)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

246 users

Autobiography > Memoir

89 users

Biography

64 users

Writing > Essays

52 users

Philosophy

34 users

Religion

28 users

Religion > Atheism

26 users

Biography > Autobiography

24 users

Death

23 users

Biography Memoir

19 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Christopher Hitchens

"Christopher Eric Hitchens (April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011) was an English-born American author, journalist and literary critic. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry and a variety of other media outlets. Hitchens was also a political observer, whose best-selling books — the most famous being god Is Not Great — made him a staple of ta...more

More about Christopher Hitchens...

Books by Christopher Hitchens

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Mortality

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Mortality

“To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?” — 52 people liked it

“The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.” — 26 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Mortality
avg rating	preview: Mortality Goodreads rating: 4.14 (5159 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13529055-mortality?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337177391l/13529055.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13529055-mortality?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Mortality by Christopher Hitchens[/url]

Mortality

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website