Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Oct 01, 2011

Rosechimera rated it:

Hitch 22 is more of a survey and opinion of modern history than a memoir. In part this is due to the spectacular public life that Hitchens has led, but it doesn't feel like an account from someone who has led a life at all. For someone who holds passionate and often (though not always) beautifully supported opinions, Hitchens presents his own life in a very detached manner. There is bountiful name dropping of really only public figures. His family of origin is sparsely mentioned, his current wif More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Emily rated it:

In March 2010, Rabbi David Wolpe debated Hitchens on the topic of (what else?) religion and eventually sputtered, "Don't interrupt me! I didn't interrupt you."

Hitchens smiled. "No, you weren't quick enough."

If that sort of delicious irony makes you swoon, you'll likely adore Hitchens' memoir. If that sort of disrespectful self-regard makes you seethe, you're unlikely to enjoy less than one page of it. I find myself in the middle, possibly the one and o More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2010

Todd rated it:

Who is the man who would risk his neck for a brother man? Hitch!
He's a complicated man and no one understands him but his mama. Chris Hitch!
Hitch is a bad mother--Shut your mouth!

All right, enough of that. This is an amazing book that I want everyone to read. To get an idea of how great it is -- finding out the identity of Deep Throat when it was still a closely guarded secret only merits a footnote in this massive memoir.

I picked it up because it was recommen More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 31, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

Well, I went back and tallied it up and this is the seventh book by Hitchens that I have read (so far; and only if you count A Long Short War as a book, but it’s really more of a pamphlet). I keep up with his Slate column on a weekly basis and have read many Hitch articles in Vanity Fair and elsewhere. Despite being such a devotee, this is the first book I’ve rated five stars.

First, to address the complaint of a well-respected and prolific reviewer, Toe Knee, in his scathing attack of More...

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2010

Margaret rated it:

This is an absolutely engaging, and breathtakingly hilarious memoir by a man whose life parallels mine, except he's a well-known intellectual and lifelong activist, and I'm just an ersatz brainy mover. We were born in the same town, the same year; we speak with the same slightly plummy accent and became Americans at the same time. We both drank and smoked our way through adventures (I quit the fags many years ago, FYI friends), but in the process he mingled and was friends with famous politici More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2010

Kevin rated it:

I've been eagerly anticipating this memoir. Great read! Hitchens truly is a great writer with a unique voice.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Matt rated it:

There are times I read Hitchens and I'm blown away by his writing abilities, and then there are other times I think he's just trying to flex nuts... there were a good handful of those in his memoirs, hence the 3 stars. That said, the man is incredibly eloquent, and staggeringly well read.

A note: As an atheist, I would consider myself something of a Hitchens admirer, but I've had trouble reconciling his leftism with his support for the war in Iraq, and I have a few quick thoughts on t More...

0 comments like

Jan 03, 2012

Will rated it:

I had actually just started reading this when Hitchens died. It’s a very dense read requiring extreme concentration as the literary and political allusions are thick on the pages. But it was well worth it as H is passionate about what he believes in and argues brilliantly. And the population density in this book (see the cast of characters in the blurb above)! It sounds like name-dropping but he knew virtually all of them.
He makes much of his split with the Left but much of that sound More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2012

Jorge rated it:

Hitch 22: A Memoir Christopher Hitchens

"Hitch 22" is the memoir of famed atheist, journalist and citizen of the world, Christopher Hitchens. An interesting albeit at times dense book, Mr. Hitchens the self-proclaimed insecure polemic icon takes us on a unique ride of a life. This 448-page book is composed of the following chapters: Yvonne; The Commander; Fragments from an Education; Cambridge; The Sixties; Revolution in the Revolution; Chris or Christopher?; Havana versus P More...

0 comments like

Dec 06, 2011

Loy rated it:

Had I known how impossibly hard, arduous and excruciating this addictive piece of a memoir would be to complete reading, in all humility, I would have never touched it, let alone read it. In fact, I would keep away from any outlet that even sold this book. For nearly 48 days it took me the courage to get back and read yet another page of this masterpiece. It was as suffocating and gut wrenching as the time when I had my appendix inflamed and explode inside me and had to mercilessly await for the More...

0 comments like

Nov 18, 2011

Harpal rated it:

As usual, Christopher Hitchens delivers his views with verve and humour. Unfortunately, his life memoir devolves into such a nauseating string of dropped names and soirees that it's at times intolerable. That more or less explains my poor rating. However, I did thoroughly enjoy, and indeed was even at times inspired by, his own personal adventures seeking out national liberation leaders, haranguing modern-day fascists for their crimes, and calling attention to ever neglected human rights abuses More...

0 comments like

Oct 17, 2011

Judith rated it:

You have to be a real true dedicated Hitch fan, and then some, to get through this book. I really admire and respect the author, and much more so after I read this book. I had no idea how actively he had supported the underdog and world-wide revolutions his entire life. I knew so little about him, other than the fact that he was a writer and an atheist, and a very close friend of many other authors I admire (Martin & Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes & Salman Rushdie to name a few). H More...

0 comments like

Sep 25, 2011

Patrick rated it:

I have a complicated relationship with the writer Christopher Hitchens. I guess I was originally drawn to his writing because his interests intersect some of mine: history, politics, current world affairs, and literature. I must admit that some of his audacious attacks on the likes of Henry Kissinger, Princess Diana, and Mother Theresa drew my attention to him. He is also a close friend of one of my favorite contemporary British writers, Martin Amis. And recently I read two of his books about hi More...

0 comments like

Apr 17, 2011

Susan rated it:

I loved this autobiographical book. I listened to a full length copy read by the author who not only has a lovely reading voice but soft and intimate tones. The book itself is revelatory and personal of course, but his manner of reading was charming as well as intimate. (I'm usually not wild about authors reading their own books, but in this case I can't imagine anyone could have done it better.)

I don't review what he said since most of you have read it. I hadn't read anything by Hitch More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2011

Corrina rated it:

This is a big, rambling, huge Hitchens ride. It's fascinating to see how an author can recreate his childhood and leave his brother out of it until nearly the last chapter! Not to mention his wife and kids. So, it's more of an intellectual history, which in itself is quite interesting and a VERY enjoyable read from the great mind of a man who has done much and done much very thoughtfully. You learn much about Hitch the mind; not so much, explicitly that is, about Hitch the man. The book cen More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2011

Paul rated it:

I greatly enjoyed Christopher Hitchens' memoir. Though we grew up in different cultures, though he went to better schools, we are within two years of age, lived through the same times, and started our political and social lives on the left, gradually moving rightward with age and experience. I was not a Marxist, as Hitchens was, but I embraced many of the positions he did, and I find that our current political views are similar. All of which is by way of saying I feel comfortable with Hitchen More...

0 comments like

Jan 27, 2011

Neil rated it:

I’ve recently undertaken to complete all those half-read books lying about my room, or, at least, the ones I stopped out of distraction rather than dislike, and Hitchens’ memoir was the first one I decided to pick up. But perhaps I’d put it down for a reason. Hitchens writes with humor and passion and verve and allusion, but, goodness, over 400 pages his arrogance overwhelmed even me, and I'm a total Hitchens mark who in the first place eagerly bought the memoir of a man whose not so modest Fo More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2010

Brad rated it:

A long, arduous, often rambling but nearly always interesting trip through the life and thoughts of a colorful and opinionated writer, Hitch-22 offers a unique look at events and people so varied that it’s worth the trip simply for the breadth of knowledge and experience contained within. One is struck again and again over the head by Hitchens’s extreme literary promiscuity and knowledge by way of his near constant onslaught of references, allusions and block quotes. The impression left is that More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Jonny99 rated it:

The Devil’s Advocate’s literary bio. No surpassing fan of the ironic exists above Christopher Hitchens. Ironic then that the anti-religious ”Hitch” (as he would like to be called) possesses writing skills that can truly be deemed god-given. To say the contrarian earns the same admiration for his literary skills as did Mozart for this way around a tune – you can pick any phrase of either at random and find that changing it even slightly diminishes – is not an overstatement. For as angry as th More...

0 comments like

Sep 27, 2010

Espen rated it:

The (almost) definitive word on Christopher Hitchens? No - more of a set of quickly and deftly executed watercolors of a life that, at least in the mind, defies any attempt at categorization. It is rather ironic, but perfectly in script, that Hitchens spends quite a bit in the book discussing impending death and ever-present knowledge that "the party will continue without me", and then, virtually on the day of the book's publications, discovers that he has contracted, if that is the wo More...

0 comments like

Sep 21, 2010

Acorn Public Library rated it:

Christopher “Don’t Call Me Chris” Hitchens is a lover and a fighter, and the two sides hash it out in this superb memoir. We get deeply felt cheers for Auden, scotch, Marx, civil disobedience, Paul Wolfowitz, and the United States alongside scalding jeers for totalitarianism, organized religion, bullies, Michael Moore, narcotics, and the Clintons. With this in mind, I really don’t think there’s anybody out there who agrees with Hitch (yes, that’s what I call him) about everything, but his argume More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 06, 2010

Jamampoline rated it:

As we are led selectively through Hitchens' life, the style bucks harder against the memoir tradition. Early stories of Hitchens' parents - the "Commander" and his tragicomic mother, Yvonne - provide the grounding for further exposition of the British class system and, from there, Marxist, Thatcherist, Trotskyist, Left, Right, and so on slices of modern ideology as explored by a modern intellectual.
One of the chief problems I have with memoirs is the hyper-nostalgic, unironic way More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2010

Thermalsatsuma rated it:

This book opens with Hitchens' experience of reading news of his own demise in a catalogue for an exhibition that described him as 'the late Christopher Hitchens', thus encouraging him to set down his memoir whilst he was still alive to do so. This has been further been given an air of almost unbearably poignant irony by his recent diagnosis of cancer of the esophagus, but this is not the place to dwell on that.

He follows a fairly structured route of memories of his mother and father More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2010

Nanette rated it:

As a fellow LibraryThing member put it, "there's no denying the beauty of his prose." I simply love how Mr. Hitchens writes. I knew this book would be a delicious read, and I wasn't disappointed.

I've been enjoying Hitchens ever since he wrote regularly for The Nation, although it took his short and pointed attack on Mother Teresa, something I thought was long overdue, to turn me into a true fan. I loved his "God is Not Great," especially the early pages where he More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2010

Erik rated it:

First, a confession: If I had the power to change lives with anyone currently living on this earth, I would choose Christopher Hitchens. He's one of those Brits who seems to have read everything and can speak as fluidly about Milton, Shakespeare and Marx as he can arcane foreign policy, the U.S. Constitution and religious laws in Germany. Too, he has traveled everywhere (he says in this memoir that he makes a point of traveling to a less fortunate country every year), and his friends with whom h More...

6 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2010

Joe rated it:

Christopher Hitchens memoir is entertaining and erudite, like any of his writings. The pompousness in the voice never goes away, but he shouldn't be sanctioned for sounding like the Englishman he once was. One of the loveliest chapters is about the "Hitch" studying for the American citizenship exam. He stays up all night drinking wine and reading the constitution, then brags about getting "top marks" on the exam itself. I'm glad he's one of us.
The Hitch has taken a More...

0 comments like

Jul 20, 2010

Maxwell rated it:

Hitchens was a lion of the left for decades --- for instance earning street cred by joining "the revolution" in Cuba --- but has recently come out in favor of Iraq War Part Deux and other policies that make the Nation's editorial staff foam at the mouth. But it kind of makes sense if you hear him out.

Two chapters stand out for me. On Salman: Hitchen retells of the Satanic Verses affair from Rushdie's side, as the two are old friends and spent time together during the darkest More...

0 comments like

Jul 18, 2010

Rick added it

Fully worth the read, and super illuminating on Hitch's past, adventures, and political actions. I had no idea he was such a radical in his youth, and I can see why his "apostasy" from socialism was such a big deal for so many people. Socialism. Trotskyism. Fascinating people were so interested in these things, and interesting how as the 20th century drew to a close, on some issues the right won (it was generally right to fight communism), and others the left won - right-leaning US gov More...

0 comments like

Jul 15, 2010

Terry rated it:

Christopher Hitchins is an iconoclastic ex-Brit now American citizen who in the past wrote for The Nation and other left-wing magazines, etc., and who now writes for Vanity Fair, among other publications. This is his memoir. It was a five-star read for me for the first two-thirds, then one or two-stars. The first part is more personal history, but very much in the context of his times and since he's about my age, they're my times, too. Having spent so much time in London, I was very familiar More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Vivian rated it:

The published reviews had prepared me: this is not a conventional memoir. It's more a series of essays, in the style to which readers of Hitchens are accustomed. I thought some things were excellent, especially: the "job" he does on the English public schools; his rendition of his 1960s (he is only a little older than I, so it was most interesting to think about his 1960s against the context of my own); his recollections of Oxford; his estimable love for and seriousness about his w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)