Hitch 22: A Memoir

Inevitably provoking strong feelings of love and hate, Christopher “Hitch” Hitchens does his job well. He's a deliciously articulate polemicist with a fearless, chutzpah-soaked ego that revels in pointing out how hypocritical, weak-minded and, well, stupid other people are. At times - such as when - together with Dawkins and the New Atheist troop - he attacks All Religion, it can be grating and overly self-satisfied. At other times - such as when he lurches from a Trotskyist youth to a pro-Iraq War stance railing against “Islamofascists” - it is riveting (if, still, provocative). This memoir, which is less a traditional biography and more a series of essays about different parts of his life - childhood, parents, Iraq, Salman Rushdie, Edward Said - is just wonderful. Like all good intellectuals writing their memoirs, he drops names left and right - and the names are pretty badass (Susan Sontag! Martin Amis! Rushdie and Said!). Furthermore, he paints a fascinating picture of the intellectual movement as it was experienced in the 80s and 90s. Overall, even if you don't (or can't!) agree with everything he says, he's a wonderful sparring partner and an inspirational mind. In 2010, he learned he had stage 4 cancer of the esophagus - very sad news indeed. I can only augur that he confronts this with his usual courage and wit. From his sharp, touching essays from Vanity Fair regarding his illness (“Tumortown”, “Miss Manners”), it seems he's doing just that.