'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 invariably a star writer everywhere 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 betes 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, but ultimately uncontainable.
By:
Christopher Hitchens
Imprint: Atlantic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions:
Height: 223mm,
Width: 146mm,
Spine: 33mm
Weight: 615g
ISBN: 9781838956004
ISBN 10: 183895600X
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 01 February 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print
1: Introduction by James Wolcott 2: The Wrong Stuff: On Tom Wolfe, 1983 3: Diary: Operation Desert Storm, 1991 4: Oh, Lionel! On P.G. Wodehouse, 1992 5: Mary, Mary: On J. Edgar Hoover, 1993 6: Say what you will about Harold: On Harold Wilson, 1993 7: Diary: The Salman Rushdie Acid Test, 1994 8: Diary: Spanking, 1994 9: Who Runs Britain? Police Espionage, 1994 10: Lucky Kim: On Kim Philby, 1995 11: Diary: At the Oscars, 1995 12: Look over your shoulder: The Oklahoma Bombing, 1995 13: Letters: Richard Cummings, Christopher Hitchens 14: After-Time: On Gore Vidal, 1995 15: A Hard Dog to Keep on the Porch: On Bill Clinton, 1996 16: The Trouble with HRH: On Princess Margaret, 1997 17: Brief Shining Moments: Kennedy and Nixon, 1998 18: Letters: Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Christopher Hitchens, Mervyn Jones 19: Acts of Violence in Grosvenor Square: On 1968, 1998 20: Diary: The 'Almanach de Gotha', 1998 21: Moderation or Death: On Isaiah Berlin, 1998 22: Letters: Roger Scruton, Francis Wheen, Mark Lilly, Christopher Hitchens 23: What a Lot of Parties: On Diana Mosley 24: 11 September 1973: Pinochet and Britain
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a columnist for Slate. He was the author of numerous books, including works on Thomas Jefferson, George Orwell, Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his international bestseller and National Book Award nominee, god Is Not Great. His memoir, Hitch-22, which was a Sunday Times bestseller, was nominated for the Orwell Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His last book, Mortality, was published in 2012 by Atlantic Books.
Reviews for A Hitch in Time: Writings from the London Review of Books
And yet... there are few journalists who can match the verve and panache of Hitchens's prose. He mixes the loquaciousness of the barfly with the fluency of the literary artist, and could not pen a dull sentence if he tried. * Guardian on AND YET... * The range is remarkable... Literary criticism is often where he shines - the pieces on Orwell and Chesterton, in particular, are alert, nuanced and witty. * The Financial Times on AND YET * What you will find in And Yet..., is a body of work that offers some of the most various, nutritious and amusing prose you are likely to encounter, and that stands as a testament to the consolations of a phrase he cherished: litera scripta manet - the written word remains. * Daily Telegraph on AND YET... * A must-read for its laugh-out-loud consideration of Ian Fleming, alongside his thoughts on Charles Dickens, Salman Rushdie, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. How sad and dull it will be to follow the next American election without his coruscating commentary. * GQ on AND YET... *
