Search results for ""Author Christopher Hitchens""
Atlantic Books And Yet...: Essays
A Sunday Times bestsellerChristopher Hitchens was an unparalleled, prolific writer, who raised the polemical essay to a new art form, over a lifetime of thinking and debating the defining issues of our times. As an essayist he contributed to the New Statesman, Atlantic Monthly, London Review of Books, TLS and Vanity Fair. Any publication of a volume of Hitchens' essays was a major event on both sides of the Atlantic. Now comes a volume of Hitchens' previously uncollected essays, covering the themes that define Hitchens the thinker: literature, religion and politics. These essays remind us, once more, of the fierce, brilliant and trenchant voice of Christopher Hitchens.
£10.99
Atlantic Books Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
A celebration of writers and their encounters with politics and public life from one of our greatest critics.Unacknowledged Legislation is a celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'. In over thirty magnificent essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie, and with his trademark wit, rigour and flair, master critic Christopher Hitchens dispels the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature. Instead, Hitchens argues that when all parties in the state were agreed on a matter, it was the individual pens that created the space for a true moral argument.I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, and inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens. - Gore Vidal
£22.50
Atlantic Books Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports
'I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive' -- Christopher Hitchens, IntroductionChristopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been one of the liveliest and most influential of contemporary political analysts. Prepared for the Worst is a collection of the best of his essays of the 1980s published on both sides of the Atlantic. These essays confirmed his reputation as a bold commentator combining intellectual tenacity with mordant wit, whether he was writing about the intrigues of Reagan's Washington, a popular novel, the work of Tom Paine, the man George Orwell, or reporting (with sympathy as well as toughness) from Beirut or Bombay, Warsaw or Managua.Hitchens writes clearly, from a well-stocked mind, and is free of the cant that affects many political journalists. - Publishers Weekly
£22.50
Hachette Books The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Christopher Hitchens's personally curated New York Times bestselling anthology of the most influential and important writings on atheism, including original pieces by Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwanFrom the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--"political and literary journalist extraordinaire" (Los Angeles Times)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.
£15.99
Atlantic Books Hitch 22: A Memoir
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle AwardIn this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces 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 recalls 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.
£12.99
Basic Books Letters to a Young Contrarian
From bestselling author and provocateur Christopher Hitchens, the classic guide to the art of principled dissent and disagreementIn Letters to a Young Contrarian, bestselling author and world-class provocateur Christopher Hitchens inspires the radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, and angry young (wo)men of tomorrow. Exploring the entire range of "contrary positions"--from noble dissident to gratuitous nag--Hitchens introduces the next generation to the minds and the misfits who influenced him, invoking such mentors as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, and George Orwell. As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. No other writer has matched Hitchens's understanding of the importance of disagreement--to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress, to democracy itself.
£12.99
Atlantic Books Arguably
A Sunday Times BestsellerChristopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a matchless writer, debater and humanist. Throughout his life he shone the light of reason and truth into the eyes of charlatans and hucksters, exposing falsehood and decrying hypocrisy wherever he found it. With his passing, the world lost a great soul, the written word one of its finest advocates and those who stand for freedom everywhere have lost one of their clearest voices. Arguably collects Hitchens' writing on politics, literature and religion when he was at the zenith of his career; it is the indispensible companion to the finest English essayist since Orwell.
£14.99
Atlantic Books A Hitch in Time: Writings from the London Review of Books
'Revisiting this selection of diaries and essay-reviews from the London Review of Books is restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.' James Wolcott in his introduction Christopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote, and the same was true of the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades. Anthologised here for the first time, this selection of his finest LRB reviews, diaries and essays (along with a smattering of ferocious letters) finds Hitchens at his very best. Familiar bêtes noires - Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton - rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. Here is Hitchens on the (first) Gulf War and the 'Salman Rushdie Acid Test', on being spanked by Mrs Thatcher in the House of Lords and taking his son to the Oscars, on America's homegrown Nazis and 'Acts of Violence in Grosvenor Square' in 1968. Edited by the London Review of Books, with an introduction by James Wolcott, this collection recaptures, ten years after his death, 'a Hitch in time': barnstorming, cauterising, and ultimately uncontainable.
£12.99
Atlantic Books The Trial of Henry Kissinger: 'A disturbing glimpse into the dark side of American power' SUNDAY TIMES
Christopher Hitchens goes straight for the jugular in The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Under his fearsome gaze, the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions and heinous disregard for international law have led to torture, kidnapping, and murder.This book is a polemical masterpiece by a man who, for forty years, was the Angloshpere's preeminent man of letters. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Hitchens' verve, style and firebrand wit are on show at the height of their potency.'A good liar must have a good memory: Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.' Christopher Hitchens
£10.99
Atlantic Books God Is Not Great
The bestselling cult classicgod Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'. In god is Not Great Hitchens turned his formidable eloquence and rhetorical energy to the most controversial issue in the world: God and religion. The result is a devastating critique of religious faith
£10.99
Atlantic Books The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
In this frank and damning exposé of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman's mission to help the world's poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish was to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answered any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds. Is Mother Teresa merely an essential salve to the conscience of the rich West, or an expert PR machine for the Catholic Church? In its caustic iconoclasm and unsparing wit, The Missionary Position showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best.
£8.99
Basic Books Why Orwell Matters
"Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century." --Boston GlobeIn this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture toward which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the seven decades since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens' polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.
£12.59
Vintage Publishing Our Man In Havana
Discover Graham Greene’s blackly comic and timely espionage thriller, set amid the vice and squalor of pre-revolutionary Havana.‘British Intelligence being sent up something rotten’ Daily Telegraph Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true, things suddenly get more complicated and Havana becomes a threatening place.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
£8.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Adventures of Augie March
'The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further' Martin AmisA penniless and parentless Chicago boy growing up in the Great Depression, Augie March drifts through life latching on to a wild succession of occupations, including butler, thief, dog-washer, sailor and salesman. He is a 'born recruit', easily influenced by others who try to mould his destiny. Not until he tangles with the glamorous Thea, a huntress with a trained eagle, can he attempt to break free. A modern day everyman on an odyssey in search of reality and identity, Augie March is the star of star performer in a richly observed human variety show, a modern-day Columbus in search of reality and fulfilment.The Adventures of Augie March includes an introduction by Christopher Hitchens in Penguin Modern Classics.'Funny, poignant, crowded with carnivalesque types and yet narrated by a voice that is lonely and simple, it is Bellow's fat comic masterpiece' Observer
£10.99
Atlantic Books Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography
Thomas Paine is one of the greatest political advocates in history. Declaration of the Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the uprising of the French people, Paine's text is a passionate defence of man's inalienable rights.In Rights of Man Paine argues against monarchy and outlines the elements of a successful republic, including public education, pensions and relief of the poor and unemployed, all financed by income tax. Since its publication, Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned and suppressed but here the polemicist and commentator Christopher Hitchens marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. Above all, Hitchens demonstrates how Thomas Paine's book forms the philosophical cornerstone of the first democratic republic, whose revolution is the only example that still speaks to us: the United States of America.
£9.99
Vintage Publishing Animal Farm
THE AUTHORATITIVE TEXT "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. "Mr Jones, the owner of Manor Farm, is a lazy drunk. The animals decide to overthrow him in a revolution that will allow them to run the farm, liberating themselves and creating a new life of equality and freedom. But they have underestimated the pigs. Napoleon and Snowball form an elite and take control for themselves, and the tyranny of the farmer is replaced with another kind of control leaving the animals again subject to a ruthless and cruel authority. Imagined only as Orwell could, this powerful fable is instilled with humour and an underlying urgency that makes this one of the most prescient warnings ever written. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
£9.67
Vintage Publishing Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95
In late 1995 and early 1996, cartoonist/reporter Joe Sacco travelled four times to Gorazde, a UN-designated safe area during the Bosnian War, which had teetered on the brink of obliteration for three and a half years. Still surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, the mainly Muslim people of Gorazde had endured heavy attacks and severe privation to hang on to their town while the rest of Eastern Bosnia was brutally 'cleansed' of its non-Serb population. But as much as Safe Area Gorazde is an account of a terrible siege, it presents a snapshot of people who were slowly letting themselves believe that a war was ending and that they had survived. Since it was first published in 2000, Safe Area Gorazde has been recognized as one of the absolute classics of graphic non-fiction. We are delighted to publish it in the UK for the first time, to stand beside Joe Sacco's other books on the Cape list - Palestine, The Fixer and Notes from a Defeatist.
£18.99
Penguin Putnam Inc Our Man in Havana
£14.78
Random House USA Inc The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution
£18.84
Penguin Books Ltd Orwell in Spain
Including Homage to Catalonia'Spain not only defined Orwell as an individual, it also gave him his first glimpse of totalitarianism' D. J. Taylor, GuardianGeorge Orwell's experience of the Spanish Civil War had a transformative effect on his life and work. This volume brings together his complete writings on the war, including Homage to Catalonia, his searing memoir of fighting in the conflict and the bitter betrayal that followed. The powerful journalism, essays, letters and pamphlets also collected here show his resolution to tell the truth about what happened amid a 'crop of lies' from both the Communist Party and the British press, while in 'Looking Back on the Spanish War' he remembers the heroism and decency of the ordinary people he encountered.Edited by Peter Davison with an Introduction by Christopher Hitchens
£12.99