Hitch 22: Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award

By Christopher Hitchens

The acid, hilarious, confessional, provocative bestselling memoirs of our greatest contrarian, and the author ofgod Is Not Great.
In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traced the footsteps of his life to date, from his childhood in Portsmouth, with his adoring, tragic mother and reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC, the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way, he recalled the girls, boys and booze; the friendships and the feuds; the grand struggles and lost causes; and the mistakes and misgivings that have characterised his life.
Hitch-22 is, by turns, moving and funny, charming and infuriating, enraging and inspiring. It is an indispensable companion to the life and thought of our pre-eminent political writer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: May 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781848877535

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens was born April 13, 1949, in England and graduated from Balliol College at Oxford University. The father of three children, he was the author of more than twenty books and pamphlets, including collections of essays, criticism, and reportage. His book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award and an international bestseller. His bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. The New York Times named his bestselling omnibus Arguably one of the ten best books of the year. A visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School in New York City, he was also the I.F. Stone professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a columnist, literary critic, and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, New Statesman, World Affairs, and Free Inquiry, among other publications. Following his death, Yoko Ono awarded him the Lennon-Ono Grant for Peace.

Reviews for Hitch 22

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Overall a well written memoir. He talks about several topics. In my opinion, it's hard to hate this guy. Well he comes off as a know-it-all at times, but his life wasn't easy. It opens up with a introduction he wrote months before he died of cancer knowing he wouldn't celebrate his next birthday. Then it goes into his mother's suicide. At least he hit us with the heavy topics first. Then he talks about politics and religion and other matters. I'm not sure he would call himself a feminist, but he clearly cares deeply about his mother throughout the book. I really liked his parts supporting Sylvia Plath, although this is before finding out Ted Hughes has a lot to do with her issues for domestic violence. Maybe this book should have been dedicated to his mother.

I will say at time I think Hitchens talk too much. Not that it's a bad thing. He clearly read a lot more than the average person. He talks about some books, but doesn't explain them well to the reader. Almost expects you to know. I probably have this flaw too. At least he is aware that he goes off topic and that his readers might not be as well educated as him. Like I said before, he also goes of topic a few times to the point forgot what the chapter's focus was.

The political parts were sometimes over my head. I get that he doesn't like authority. I find it interesting he moved to the United States because he didn't care for England. He talks about how US seems more free than UK. At one point this turns into an American Dream story telling. Then later it seems like he likes politics, but can't seem to fit into any of them like religion.

He is atheist. That is one thing I got from all of this. He doesn't just critique Christianity, but points out flaws with Judaism, Muslim, and others. He respect them as people, but not faith. He's more of a Humanist than people want to admit maybe. He talks about Marx and Orwell a lot, but I notice his religion seems to mirror more Spinoza (the ashiest version of Spinoza that is) than anyone else. He talks about loving Spinoza, but doesn't mention Ethics. I'm sure he's read the book.

I wouldn't read this book unless you know who this guy is before hand though. My review doesn't cover half of the thing I would talk about more if I bothered to write and essay long review. I recommend watching his debates on YouTube first.

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This memoir is one of the rare books which are interesting and boring the same time. The life and worldview of Hitchens is nothing but very interesting but sometimes he`s going into such details of the contemporary English and American world that it can`t really be enjoyed without a detailed knowledge about them (and maybe even with them). In whole still a recommended read.

[lukegoldstein · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You can pretty much start a fight with anyone over anything in society today, but few topics are more touchy than religion and politics and few people are more outspoken on both of those items than Christopher Hitchens. His wit, intellectual acumen and brash tone have been on display for years, but in Hitch-22 – A Memoir you see behind the curtain at the beginnings, the innocent moments that led this young boy to become one of the most fiery orators and debaters of his time.

What starts off as a slow boil in his younger days, quickly leads to his schooling and the sparks which set his mind racing. His also finds himself surrounded by other thinkers, radicals who challenged the status quo and who would eventually become lifelong allies in the struggles Hitchens participated in. Those who chose the other side of the arguments often found themselves deflecting brash and sometimes caustic lines of attack, but they would never deny Hitchens passion for the cause (whatever that cause may be.) He battled throughout his life against what he saw as hypocrisy and blind devotion to order, laying out essay after essay calling for the extension and protection of freedom, fairness and equality, which at various points found him a home in the Communist Party and other leftist factions; some peaceful, others less so. You get to read about the many internal struggles within the various resistances, revolutionaries all vying for power and point in what they saw as the new future, but Hitchens would never waver from his main cause, which was to write about what he saw and what he believed. Exposing the various underbellies of governments and power structures became almost an obsession for the gifted linguist.

The book is full of memorable lines and heavy points, but this one in particular stuck out to me:

“… but once a bogus story has been printed for the first time, it will be reprinted again and again by the lazy and/or the malicious.”

The strikes to the heart of Hitchens, the search for the truth based on your own experiences and investigation, not relying on the media or the people in power to deliver it for you. Because there are always machinations working behind the scenes, motives and desires tipping the story one way or the other, disguising and obscuring the truth. Of course, the same can be said about Hitchens himself and it would be true. He does have a motive, but the motive seems to be to expose other motives, almost in a self-destructive fashion, begging you to challenge him as well.

He’s been called every name in the book, from blasphemer (due to his atheism) to traitor (due to his political views), but he talks in the book about a great love and respect for the United States, which he considers an incredible idea:

“And what a subject America was: an inexhaustible one in fact, begun by written proclamations and assertions that were open to rewriting and amendment, and thus constituting an enormous “work-in-progress” which one might have to play a tiny part.”

His writing, and his life in itself, is a clarion call to those on the sidelines, begging them to look at what is going on and take part, whether you are for or against. Question everything. Again, from the book:

“It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties.” (from which you can see his inherent opposition to something like the Bible or any religious text.)

When you reach the end of the book it feels as though the biggest sin undercutting the whole story is ambivalence to your life and your world. He screams to take notice, take part and just plain take a look around. You might be surprised what you find.

[eglinton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hitchens’ bracing polemics produce a slightly wearing but always stimulating read. There’s a lot in it as he takes us from his private school tussles through the revolutionary Trotskyite movements he follows, in the face of the 68ers’ more hedonistic liberations, to his maturing in the Washington of wars of humanitarian interventionism and regime change. The tone tends to the acerbic, as he can’t resist the urge to denigrate, also to brag. He’s unabashed with the name dropping, but as this is rich in literary and intellectual influences, the reader is rewarded with valuable references to follow up. And his thinking is always interesting, if not in the end wholly reliable: see for example his slightly contrived attempt (relevant to our own degenerating times) at explaining the tenacity of anti-semitism (p379 in this ‘Twelve’ edition).

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The chief attributes were the references to the Amis clan. There wasn't much else but a bloviated rasping.

It may be fitting that I finished the book at a shopping mall, waiting for my wife. The structure of this memoir could strike one as a pitch. Maybe the mark finds forgiveness, maybe the neo-con conversion was genetic. The blood made him do it. I'll stop there.

[rosechimera-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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 wife and children could be missed in a blink, and the mother of two children is omitted. Fair enough, he perhaps intends to maintain privacy, but it is just one symptom of the book's overall sense of detachment. Whether Hitchens discusses pivotal, personal events or prurient events like a visit to a brothel, there is a lack of introspection and inner dialogue. It's almost as though an automaton was designed to live a radical, amazing life and report on it eloquently but without feeling. The only occasion where this didn't entirely hold true is when Hitchens discusses his mother and when he takes a personal interest in the death of a soldier he had influenced. Even in these instances, you only get the mere sense of a depth of emotion. The fact of Hitchens' life is much more enjoyable than its recounting.

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't agree with some of his politics but his background is fascinating.

[michael_rose-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite biography so far, auto or otherwise. I was particularly hit hard by the fate of his mother. If you want to understand more about the man than just his arguments, perhaps why he argues the way he does, you'd do well to read this book.

[foof2you · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed the honesty and candor of this book. Interesting to see how his views came about. Used a lot of words that I had to look up. (One of the nice things about eReaders is the dictionary is included, but I did not read this on one of those.)

[jimocracy · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Boring. I had such high hopes but it just didn't pan out for me. I'm sure this was rivoting for political junkies but it seemed so stuffy and detached to me. Even the author's account of his mother's suicide seemed devoid of emotion.

[gregorio_roth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great Memoir of a Genius Critic. One is encouraged to read literature and think critically in all situations. I loved his connections made between the classics read and the book he led. If you are a reader than this book will be your cup of tea, or stick of dynamite (TNT).

[faradaydon_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant start, but then lapses into chest-thumping. Needs a good editor.

[kitscot-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a memoir first published in 2010. My copy is the 2011 edition that includes a forward by Hitchens having earlier that same year been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He died in December 2011. Christopher Hitchens was an author, journalist, essayist, pamphleteer and superb orator. His debating skills, honed at Oxford, were sharp, insightful and could leave his opponent feeling like they had undergone ten rounds with Cassius Clay.To my utter shame I didn’t start taking an interest in Christopher Hitchens and his writings until around 2005. My introduction to Hitchens was through my love of the works of George Orwell. I stumbled upon Christopher Hitchens biographical essay ‘Orwell’s Victory ’, (known as ‘Why Orwell Matters’ in the USA), in a second hand bookshop. Not only was ‘Orwell’s Victory’ a superb piece of literature and a cracking read but it had the effect of wanting to know more about Mr. Hitchens.Hitch 22 details his relationship with his parents, loving, beautiful but distant mother and uncommunicative, stoic but heroic father. Names are dropped within the book like so many autumn leaves; Salman Rushdie, James Fenton, Richard Dawkins, Martin Amis etc etc. But, this is not an attempt by Christopher Hitchens to show off or communicate to the outside world about his highly influential friends. Each name is ‘dropped’ to illustrate a point or to help frame a chapter and give it context.There have been many superlatives used to describe Christopher Hitchens, erudite, witty, passionate and rhetorically astute. It is not only hard to think of new ones but it is difficult to disagree with any of them.Hitch 22 is 422 pages of the English language in perfect harmony. His writing style is the language equivalent of the Taj Mahal or the Potala Palace in Tibet: beautifully constructed with no superfluous building materials.

[satyridae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hitchens is a fascinating character, and his memoir is no less fascinating. I really enjoyed hearing his narration, though his reading style did take a lot of getting used to.

This memoir is wildly discursive in the most erudite fashion- and some of the political bits were far too complicated for me to follow 40-odd years later. I love Hitchens' willingness to stand up for what he believes in, and his utter fearlessness.

Well worth reading.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would because I frequently get annoyed with Hitchens coming off like an arrogant and pompous bastard. The man writes beautiful prose and never bores. He's lived a rich, full life and shares many fascinating observations and insights. A great intellectual with a sharp wit and keen sense of irony.

[wonderperson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Careerist Memoir at end of life reflecting on battles, achievements, intellectual journey, move from Left to Right aided and abetted by degeneration of the Left into Totalitarian Dictatorship.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A brilliant memoir, with acidic wit and an encyclopedic description of everything. I am reminded slightly of Mencken, who had such a brilliant and acerbic way with words, and whose slight arrogance can be justified with their linguistic brilliance.

[exitfish · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With great humor, tenderness and conviction, Hitch gives us a brilliant account of himself. It's a cerebral book of ideas and struggle - struggle within oneself as much as with an unjust world - that has challenged and expanded my view of some of the great political/ideological forces and events of the past 50 years. It's certainly challenged and expanded my view of Christopher Hitchens. But like all the best writing, it's also a struggle between reader and author (Many times did I find myself saying, "Yes, but...") that helps open the curtains of one's own mental blind spots and emotional illusions.
Hitch is also one of the great masters of prose style. It's a fast current. And exhilarating. Highly recommended.

[daisyq-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Christopher Hitchens could be very witty and incisive, and was clearly intelligent and well-read. His wit doesn't come through that strongly in this memoir, though. It is only at times a traditional autobiography. The foreword from the more recent edition (in which he writes about his terminal illness, undiagnosed when the book was written) the chapter about his mother, and a later chapter where he muses on his Jewish heritage that was hidden from him, were the most personal and interesting.

As for the rest, for me there's far too much blathering about drinking games with his mates that are only funny if you were there, and also drunk. Far too much justification of previously held beliefs and attempting to reconcile them with later positions. Far too many wounded descriptions of his fallings out with others, without ever really taking any responsibility himself.

I am not that interested in Hitchens' wider circle (e.g. Martin Amis, James Fenton..)and Hitch-22 would be more worthwhile for someone who is.

I almost gave up on this after the visit to the brothel with Amis, and spent much of the rest of the book disliking both of them because I couldn't get over the attitude displayed here. Those awful, ungrateful prostitutes, looking with contempt at people who were paying for sex (or in Hitchens' case, fortuitously spared from the full deal as he didn't have enough cash). Poor, poor Martin Amis, forced - forced - to have sex with a contemptuous prostitute in order to use the experience in his fiction. The episode is just spectacularly lacking in self awareness, or any attempt to understand or empathise with the women in question, and paints Amis and Hitchens as somehow victims of an enterprise they chose to instigate. And it's not even funny!

[chancemaree · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hitchens was a curiosity. I sporadically followed his interviews and writing, admired his courage travelling to world hot spots and in the face of his own mortality, yet couldn't quite keep him pinned in any one category of intellectuals. Hitchens was an Anti: Anti-theist, Anti-fascist, Anti-totalitarian, Anti-Stalin, Anti-Zionist....I didn't follow him that closely, but the list goes on. I was curious as to whether I fundamentally agreed with him or not, given that many times I had agreed, and many times I hadn't. His thinking seemed to be in a constant state of evolution as I heard him project and defend popular and unpopular opinions. I wanted to know the underlying principle in his personal map. What made this man tick?

His memoir is written in a mostly reserved fashion, with a few exceptions. First, his upbringing seemed almost Shakespearean. His pretty and ambitious mother insisted on sending her boy-king off to quality English boarding schools from the age of eight, despite her own unhappy marriage, and the financial and personal sacrifices that such ambition required. Their relationship was close. When Hitch was a young adult, his mother sought and gained his approval of her secret lover. The most sad and moving part occurred in November 1973 when Hitchens' mother committed suicide in Athens in a suicide pact with that very same, Hitch-approved, lover. At first, news had been that his mother had been murdered. Hitch then had to tell father and brother about the infidelity and suicide. He regreted he was not available when his mother called him the day she died. Beyond that, Hitch does not describe romances or marriages for a couple of reasons: he thought it not fair to disclose other people's stories, and he thought they would bore the reader. Instead, he focused on what he termed, heterosexual love between males, primarily his nonsexual love for Amis Martin. At the same time, he does not hide nor deny the homosexual acts in boarding school and after.

For most of the remaining text, Hitch describes a life as a “rebel with a cause”. From the start, he sided with the working class, yet had to reconcile this allegiance with the obvious corruption of trades and unions. This, it seems to me, was the beginning of a refinement of stances that he'd take throughout his life. I believe Hitch developed a keen sense of gray. Or, a fine honing knife.

Hitch was an author and journalist for over 40 years. He was ranked among the most influential liberals in the U.S. Media, yet he was a harsh critics of Clinton and sided with the Iraq war because he wanted to see regime change. He saw the Iraq as an alliance of goons and gangsters and terrorists. However, he was genuinely surprised at the incompetence of Bush administration and he criticized the planning and execution of the war. This was a man in agreement with neo-cons and progressives, but he rejected both labels and was not a fan of either.

Hitch was an atheist who saw organized religion as "the main source of hatred in the world'. He was against any state that “recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life.” He believed “individual freedom, and free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization.” This, I believe was the essence of the man. He weighed all opinions and judgments and stances on the basis of that one truism. I believe much of his ambition stemmed from the need to justify and earn his mother's love and sacrifice. The man was complicated.

Hitch's book is about battles of ideas and psychodrama. He describes countercultural and protest movements. He had ideological interests that labeled him a Trotskyist and a sort of anti-Stalinist socialist, yet he rejected socialists, as he claimed they ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. He described himself as thinking like a Marxist, yet he thought capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalization. He sided in the freedom of the individual from the state, yet he had harsh words for libertarians.
I'd personally call much of what he believed as being a humanist. Despite his acerbic tongue, Hitchens believed "one must not insult or degrade or humiliate people." Hitch was terrified of being boring, or of being bored, and went to great lengths to be the center of attention. Good grief. After reading Hitch-22, I have a sense of the man as he matured. The man was complicated, but so is life and if Hitch has taught me anything, it's to not look for a side to follow blindly, but to slice and parse and think a bit more deeply about what it is I believe.

[annb2013 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Come back, Hitch, there's no one quite like you. Interesting memoir although that word game he and the boys play does sound like something that's a lot more funny to those actually present and drunk.

[knightlight777 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have liked Christopher Hitchens in the past primarily through his previous book, "God is Not Great." Being an anti-religionist, not an atheist I was pretty much in agreement with what he had to say. I was not aware however how little I knew about the man. I was hoping I would gain a lot of answers in this book but I was disappointed.First in fairness this is a memoir not an autobiography and that is where I may have been misdirected. About 85% of the book deals with his political leftest escapades throughout his life. Other topics include a semi-bio on his father and mother. His early schooling is covered also and his experimentation in homosexuality. But very little beyond that such as his own family. His children are mentioned in a paragraph or two. His wife is not mentioned at all. Beyond his analysis of his part Jewish heritage which was kept from him he rarely ventures into his feelings and thoughts on his personal life outside of the political ring.So for those very much into political debate of the right vs. left and socialism contrasted to communism then the book would certainly have appeal. No doubt Hitchens was committed to his cause throughout his life. The problem I found is that he never really gave the reasons why just the experiences.

[peirastic_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Liberating, inspiring, life changing. A wake up call for the budding intellectual. A manifesto of free thinking. A call to the revolutionaries, to never abandon their convictions - imploring one to look towards the lost treasure of revolution in shaping our lives; our world.Hitch is the catalyst in my personal odyssey, in realizing that it is your mind that changes you. "Get on with your own ork, and behave as if you were immortal."

[nbmars · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Christopher Hitchens wrote a very entertaining and provocative book—God is Not Great. He also wrote a rather tedious and tendentious memoir, Hitch 22. Or at least the first 2 CD’s of his 14 CD memoir were just too slow for me to push on to the end. He apparently wants to tell us about the roots of his personal and political convictions, and the changes he went through while growing up and growing older. He also wants to share his impressions of other notables. This might have gone over better in print.It didn’t help that Hitch himself was the reader: he not only frequently slurs his words, but he often ends his sentences at a substantially lower volume than at the beginning. The effect on the listener is to require frequent and annoying mid-sentence raising or lowering of the volume dial. Of course, that assumes that the listener actually wants to hear and understand what Hitch is saying. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed in Hitch 22. But then, the last six-sevenths of the book may be more exciting than the first seventh, and it all may be better enjoyed in print than in listening to the author mumble. (JAB)

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Christopher Hitchens was a passionate reader, thinker, speaker, and writer. I share his passion, but not all of his passions. Some of those I share include a passion for reading (widely and deeply), and an intense dislike of hypocrisy of all kinds. His memoir chronicles a life that began the same day that mine did although, unlike mine, it has ended--all too soon. While I have read his essays and biographical sketches the catalyst for reading his memoir was the tribute for him that, thanks to the wonder that is CSPAN BookTV, was broadcast on television a week ago as "A Tribute for Christopher Hitchens"; one example of the all too few oases of value in the wasteland that with the ubiquity of Cable has only grown larger over the years.The memoir chronicles his personal history with a bent toward intellectual history. The passion of his living shows through in his writing with excitement for the reader both from his adventures in political warfare and his experience in the literary realm of reading and subsequently writing. He developed an uncanny ability to see and understand both sides of an argument, making his own positions stronger in the process. One moment that epitomizes this is his epiphany when, as a student at Oxford in 1968, he visits a camp for international revolutionaries in Cuba. Even there, left-wing as his views were, he could not tow the line and had the audacity to question the unreflexive adherence to whatever opinion emanated from Castro, the "revolutionary leader". Ironically he remembers the aimlessness of a whole day when, with Russian tanks entering Prague, the communists in Cuba had no official view until their leader revealed the official line. To what extent his memory was tempered with hindsight the reader will have to judge for himself, but given his outspoken often contrarian views the picture of his role in that time rings true. His roles as student, lecturer, foreign correspondent, polemicist of ideas (usually contrarian and always well-thought), and more fill the pages of a book that must be read by all who have appreciated his presence in the battlefield of ideas over the last few decades. Perhaps the best example of the many facets of his critical and literary life was his move from England to America. In doing so, becoming a regular contributor for The Nation magazine as a Brit in America he seemed to become a sort of left-wing version of Alistair Cooke and William F. Buckley melded into one outspoken contrarian commentor. This is the Christopher Hitchens that I first encountered in essays and on television and his version of the journey is fascinating.I share his love of literary giants like Orwell and appreciate the way he could effectively stand up against hypocrites of all stripes and, usually, irrational beliefs. His was a life bred in the exciting world of ideas and one that in his words makes for a great memoir. I would encourage everyone to make some room for Christopher Hitchens in their reading life.

[sandydog1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Long, rambling and fascinating.

[sundaraz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A little disappointed that it wasn't as interesting as i had hoped it would be. It's a different kind of a memoir than the normal ones. Hitch is really fluid and rambles here and there in this. I would read this book just for the chapters on "Mesopotamia from both sides" and "decay, evolution or metamorphosis". It really shows his open mindedness and soundness of judgement instead of clinging to ideas only because he already had a foot in it. It's a good lesson for everyone too, seemingly obvious but tough to grasp. It's just amazing how he quotes extensively from so many authors and books and incidents, and it's a real pleasure to read all of that. Glad he wrote this and gladder that i had the chance to read it! It took me a while to understand the title though. Even though reading the book doesn't give the idea of remorse or any such need for it, the over emphasis on double identity and the changes he went through gives an impression that he wanted to do some explanation on his leanings and their changes, or at least wanted the lesson to be known about certitudes in anything.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Christopher Hitchens's memoirs, like his other writings, is remarkably satisfying in its breadth of content and its approach to reporting on a life well and truly lived. In fact, Hitchens lived so much that I was almost depressed by reading of his adventures, especially considering that he did so much so young, and what do I have to say for myself?However, one should know before reading this volume that these are Hitchens's memoirs, not an autobiography of such. Although he discusses his relationship with his parents at length, and the late-in-life revelation of his Jewish ancestry, he manages to avoid for the most part mentioning either of his wives (or at least how his marriage came to have a sequel) or his relationship with his brother. There is still much work available for any would-be biographer, though the prose here is so faultless that the task should not be taken on lightly.In all, a magnificent work, and I feel truly better for having read it.

[mthelibrarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating memoir by the legendary Vanity Fair writer who attended Oxford and is friends with Martin Amis. I listened to it on Audible audiobook. Hitchens is an atheist and highly opinionated, but also brilliant, and refreshingly unafraid to share controversial views. I recently read an excerpt of the book in a 2010 issue of Vanity Fair that I hadn't yet gotten around to finishing or recycling - it included the Martin Amis chapter or portion thereof - and had to download it immediately. His mother's tragic death and his late discovery of Jewish ancestry were fascinating; I was particularly interested in his discussion of Wroclaw, Poland (the former Breslin, Germany). He notes the impact of 1968, 1989 and 2001 events on his world view. He thought he might be able to depart from his political writing and debates but realized after Sept. 11, 2001 that it would be impossible. He has a new book of essays out in hardcover.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have been aware of Christopher Hitchens for a long time, but it is only in the last few years that I've really been much of an admirer of his. It's amazing how much "smarter" the man seemed to become as his political views grew closer to my own (for those unsure, this is my lame attempt at a joke) - even his "take no prisoners" debate style seemed less abrasive than before. Hitch-22 is in some ways more than the book I expected and, in other ways, a bit less than I hoped for when I first picked it up. On the one hand, Hitchens is frank about many aspects of his personal life, including the family scandal that cost his mother her life when she was killed by her lover in one of those murder-suicide incidents that destroy so many families. He addresses his own bisexuality, tracing it all the way back to his boarding school days during which homosexual experimentation among the students was commonplace - and admits that he became more of a womanizer after he came to believe that signs of physical aging made him unattractive to men. On the other hand, however, Hitchens says very little about either of his wives or his children, using them more as props, than anything else, in stories about some of his more famous friends, and enemies in the literary world. Most interesting to me is the explanation Hitchens gives for his gradual shift of political views, all the way from being about as far left as one could be in 20th century England to becoming an advocate of the far right viewpoint on American/world politics by the 21st century. Along the way, Hitchens became friends with some of the most influential political and literary minds of his day; as his politics changed, some of those same people would become his bitter enemies. Hitchens, never one to pull his punches, tells the reader exactly what he thinks of the politicians, writers, pundits, and personalities he encountered along the way. While that it definitely a good approach to writing a memoir, many American readers are likely to find themselves a bit befuddled by some of the names and situations Hitchens describes from his earlier life. Too, these particular chapters constitute some of the most dryly written ones in the book, and it takes determination on the part of the reader to get through them despite the war zone adventures they often describe. Hitch-22 does, though, reflect the personality of its author, and the book will not disappoint Hitchens fans. The man's feisty, confrontational approach to life, one leavened by his rather raunchy and witty take, is there for all to see - and enjoy. Even taking into account his current fight for survival, few would say that Christopher Hitchens has been cheated by life. His has been one of the more interesting ones of the 20th century and Hitch-22 proves it.Rated at: 4.0