Christopher Hitchens

232 Christopher Hitchens Recommended Books

Christopher Hitchens is a British-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He has written several books on politics, religion, and literature, and was one of the most prominent and influential public intellectuals of his time. Hitchens was a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and Slate, and a columnist for the Atlantic Monthly. He passed away in 2011, but his legacy lives on in his works and those of his admirers.

232 Books recommended by Christopher Hitchens

The File

The File

Author :Penn Kimball

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A well-controlled masterpiece of frigid outrage at America’s betrayal of a loyal citizen." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Selling Hitler

Selling Hitler

The Extraordinary Story of the Con Job of the Century

Author :Robert Harris

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Brilliant." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Daniel Deronda

Daniel Deronda

Author :George Eliot

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Can and should be defended from the faint praise and outright sneering which have been directed at it." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Clinton Tapes

The Clinton Tapes

Conversations with a President, 1993 - 2001

Author :Taylor Branch

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author] would tape his own memories of [his talks with Bill Clinton] on the drive back home. [This book] is the consequence." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited

Author :Evelyn Waugh

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Discourses on aspects of the Bacchic and the Dionysian." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Prophet Outcast

The Prophet Outcast

Trotsky 1929-1940

Author :Isaac Deutscher

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens mentioned this as one of his favorite books in a C-SPAN interview in 2007. [Source]

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

Author :F. Scott Fitzgerald

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author] found he'd taken on all the great American themes, from the original 'dream' itself to the corresponding loss of innocence." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Watership Down

Watership Down

A Novel

Author :Richard Adams

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] masterpiece." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

At Canaan's Edge

At Canaan's Edge

America in the King Years, 1965-68

Author :Taylor Branch

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A noble edifice of work about the United States in the era of Martin Luther King." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Collected Works of P. G. Wodehouse

The Collected Works of P. G. Wodehouse

Author :PG Wodehouse

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"How can I forget the moment when [I] learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language—always the language—was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry?" - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Judgment Of Paris

The Judgment Of Paris

Author :Gore Vidal

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I winced with recognition when I first read the expression 'British teeth' in [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Theatres of Memory

Theatres of Memory

Past and Present in Contemporary Culture

Author :Raphael Samuel

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Still a potent and eloquent reminder of a braver time." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Black Jacobins

The Black Jacobins

Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

Author :C.L.R. James

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] monumental work." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

My Name Is Red

My Name Is Red

Author :Orhan Pamuk

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[With this book, the author] became a kind of register of this position, dwelling on the interpenetration of Islamic and Western styles." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

1984

1984

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"We were all expected to read Animal Farm and [this book], which had been placed on the syllabus as part of the curriculum of the Cold War." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Monument

The Monument

Art and Vulgarity in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Author :Kanan Makiya

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Possibly the most penetrating of his many books about Saddam and Saddamism." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Principia Mathematica

Principia Mathematica

Volume One

Author :Bertrand Russell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] most imposing work is probably [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

An Opposing Man

An Opposing Man

Author :Ernst Fischer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Marvellous." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Shameful Act

Shameful Act

Author :Taner Akçam

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The only Turkish historian to have talked of genocide." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

America Alone

America Alone

The End of the World as We Know It

Author :Mark Steyn

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A welcome wake-up call." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Benn Diaries

The Benn Diaries

The Definitive Collection

Author :Tony Benn

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Recorded a meeting of like-minded members of Parliament the day after the fatwah." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Protestant Establishment

The Protestant Establishment

Aristocracy and Caste in America

Author :E. Digby Baltzell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The acronym 'WASP' was] first minted by [this author in this book], the term stood for 'White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.'" - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

War And Peace

War And Peace

Author :Leo Tolstoy

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"At the age of twelve I had summoned the nerve to borrow from the headmaster, and to read [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Ship

The Ship

Author :C. S. Forester

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The odds in tonnage and gunnery are adjusted in favour of the British side by sheer discipline, pluck and morale." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

They Fought Back

They Fought Back

The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe

Author :Yuri Suhl

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Combats the wretched image of European Jews as fatalistic and passive." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago

Author :Boris Pasternak

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author] was perhaps not such a fool when he wrote in [this book] that all conceptions are immaculate." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Diaries

Diaries

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Can greatly enrich our understanding of how [the author] transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Hitler

Hitler

1889-1936 Hubris

Author :Ian Kershaw

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Since [Hitler's] suicide, no one has fully explained how a talentless crank was able to turn Europe into a charnel house. [This book] supplies a piece of the puzzle." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

For Whom the Bell Tolls

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Author :Ernest Hemingway

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Influenced me very greatly." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Men in Prison

Men in Prison

Author :Victor Serge

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Excellent." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Power

Power

A Radical View

Author :Steven Lukes

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author was] more celebrated still for [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Southern California

Southern California

An Island on the Land

Author :Carey McWilliams

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Was, and still is, considered more or less the book to beat." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Author :Karl Marx

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] best-ever essay." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Mask of Anarchy

The Mask of Anarchy

Author :Percy Bysshe Shelley

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the finest hymns of hate to authority to have come down to us." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Fireflies

Fireflies

Author :Shiva Naipaul

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the great tragicomic novels of our day." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Rebel Land

Rebel Land

Unraveling the Riddle of History in a Turkish Town

Author :Christopher de Bellaigue

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I would recommend [this book] of exceptional interest and scholarship." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Portrait in Sepia

Portrait in Sepia

Daughter Of Fortune, Book 2

Author :Isabel Allende

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The 'subject' is assuredly family life, which is also the tempestuous subtext of much of [the author]'s nonfiction." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The New York Intellectuals

The New York Intellectuals

The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s

Author :Alan M. Wald

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Shows the germinal, contradictory force of revolutionary politics." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Animal Liberation

Animal Liberation

The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement

Author :Peter Singer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The parts of [this famous book] that I find most impressive are the deadpan reprints of animal-experiment 'reports.'" - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

This Was the Old Chief's Country

This Was the Old Chief's Country

Collected African Stories

Author :Doris Lessing

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Combines] the sad indistinctness of a melancholy memoir with the very exact realization that a huge injustice had been done to the 'native' inhabitants of the land." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Cruiser

The Cruiser

Author :Warren Tute

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[In this book], my father appears under the name (no first or 'Christian' name) of Lieutenant Hale." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Darkness at Noon

Darkness at Noon

A Novel

Author :Arthur Koestler

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I was re-reading [this book] for what felt like (and quite possibly was) the third time in a month." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Antigone

Antigone

Author :Sophocles

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The most powerful of [the author's] plays." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Complete Poems

The Complete Poems

Author :Philip Larkin

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

Children in Exile

Children in Exile

Author :James Fenton

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"An essential complement to their predecessors." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Great Soul

Great Soul

Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India

Author :Joseph Lelyveld

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Questions] the moral heroism of India's most revered figure." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Savage God

The Savage God

Author :A. Alvarez

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Returns often to the suicide of Cesare Pavese, who took his own life at the apparent height of his powers." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Fall of Berlin 1945

The Fall of Berlin 1945

Author :Antony Beevor

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] heart-freezing account [...] of the rape and murder and humiliation that fell on Germans in the territory taken by the Soviet army in 1945." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Complete Poems by Wilfred Owen

Complete Poems by Wilfred Owen

Author :Wilfred Owen

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I think [people] should read [this author]. In particular they should read 'Dulce et Decorum Est.' The poem that first arrested me." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Siege

The Siege

The Saga of Israel and Zionism

Author :Conor Cruise O'Brien

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A great book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Watching the Door

Watching the Door

Drinking Up, Getting Down, and Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast

Author :Kevin Myers

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The most witty and penetrating first-hand account of [1970s Belfast]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

C.L.R. James

C.L.R. James

The Artist As Revolutionary

Author :Paul Buhle

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Admirable." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Bosnia

Bosnia

A Short History

Author :Noel Malcolm

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the best books I've ever read. I have no choice but to say so." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

Author :Erich Maria Remarque

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I became consumed with the subject [of World War I] and got hold of [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Ulysses

Ulysses

Author :James Joyce

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Appears] not to be written by [a human being]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

In Between the Sheets

In Between the Sheets

Author :Ian McEwan

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"By then, 'everyone' had been mesmerized by [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Struggle for Power

A Struggle for Power

The American Revolution

Author :Theodore Draper

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A very good history of the general events without which the American Revolution couldn't have taken place or would have taken a different form." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Sword of Honour Trilogy

The Sword of Honour Trilogy

Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen & Unconditional Surrender

Author :Evelyn Waugh

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"When you read [this trilogy], you will straightaway notice that the veterans of the first world war are the instructors of the novices of the second world war." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Pillar of Fire

Pillar of Fire

America in the King Years 1963-65

Author :Taylor Branch

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A noble edifice of work about the United States in the era of Martin Luther King." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Anarchist Portraits

Anarchist Portraits

Author :Paul Avrich

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Charming and melancholy album of silhouettes." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Republic of Fear

Republic of Fear

The Politics of Modern Iraq

Author :Kanan Makiya

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] path-breaking anatomy of the Ba'ath regime." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Money

Money

A Suicide Note

Author :Martin Amis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The Great English Novel of the 1980s." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Maps for Lost Lovers

Maps for Lost Lovers

Author :Nadeem Aslam

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said he was reading this book in a C-SPAN interview in 2007. [Source]

Brave New World

Brave New World

Author :Aldous Huxley

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"In [this book], one can often detect strong hints of a vicarious approval of what is ostensibly being satirized." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

Author :Charles Dickens

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author] essentially recast his friend Thomas Carlyle’s pessimistic version of the French Revolution in fictional form in [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

An Insular Possesion

An Insular Possesion

Author :Timothy Mo

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"If my mighty, critical pen could flash from its scabbard and secure a vast public for any unjustly neglected author, it would flash for [this author]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Author :Julian Barnes

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[A] meditation on death." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

What Is History?

What Is History?

Author :Edward Hallet Carr

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Brilliant." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Animal Farm

Animal Farm

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"There is a timeless, even transcendent, quality to this little story." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Prophet Armed

The Prophet Armed

Trotsky 1879-1921

Author :Isaac Deutscher

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Part of a] magnificent trilogy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Move Your Shadow

Move Your Shadow

South Africa, Black and White

Author :Joseph Lelyveld

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The best anatomy of the topic that I've yet read." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Redundancy of Courage

The Redundancy of Courage

Author :Timothy Mo

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"If my mighty, critical pen could flash from its scabbard and secure a vast public for any unjustly neglected author, it would flash for [this author]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Author :D.H. Lawrence

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Plainly intended to suggest that the gamekeeper had sodomized his boss’s wife." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Imperialism at Bay

Imperialism at Bay

The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945

Author :William Roger Louis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"As its title implies, [this book] is more prepared to call things by their unambiguous names." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1

I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1

A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941

Author :Victor Klemperer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Don't start [this book] late at night, you will not get to bed." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Oxford Shakespeare

The Oxford Shakespeare

The Complete Works

Author :William Shakespeare

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens mentioned Shakespeare's work in the "Hitch-22" book. [Source]

The Jaguar Smile

The Jaguar Smile

Author :Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"About a voyage to revolutionary Nicaragua." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Broken Compass

The Broken Compass

Author :Peter Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Contains several assertions and affirmations that make me desire to be wearing a necklace of the purest garlic." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Bomb in My Garden

The Bomb in My Garden

The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind

Author :Mahdi Obeidi

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A memoir by Saddam Hussein’s chief nuclear physicist." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Memoirs of an Anti-Semite

Memoirs of an Anti-Semite

A Novel in Five Stories

Author :Gregor Von Rezzori

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Evokes the charms and hatreds of a lost world—and the enduring contradictions of anti-Semitism." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Silent Angel

The Silent Angel

Author :Heinrich Böll

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Unflinchingly discusses the ruins and the corpses." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Orientalism

Orientalism

Author :Edward W. Said

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A book that made one think." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Coming Up for Air

Coming Up for Air

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"In these pages, I found some specimens of exactly the lower-middle-class family that was familiar to me from life." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Writers and Politics

Writers and Politics

Author :Conor Cruise O'Brien

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Influenced me enormously when I first found it in a public library in Devonshire in 1967." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Victorian England

Victorian England

Portrait of an Age

Author :G.M. Young

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[One of] the two greatest freehand exercises in English periodization." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Serious Concerns

Serious Concerns

Author :Wendy Cope

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

The 1917 Campaign

Author :Leon Wolff

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A revisionist history of the First World War." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Persian Boy

The Persian Boy

Alexander the Great, Book 2

Author :Mary Renault

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[A] marvelous novel." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Rachel Papers

The Rachel Papers

Author :Martin Amis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A huge critical and commercial grand slam." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Pale Fire

Pale Fire

Author :Vladimir Nabokov

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Instead of making you want to write, [makes] you wonder why you bother." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"In these pages, I found some specimens of exactly the lower-middle-class family that was familiar to me from life." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

Author :Richard Hofstadter

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Endlessly consultable." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Bend Sinister

Bend Sinister

Author :Vladimir Nabokov

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Prescient and haunting." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Alexander

Alexander

The Ambiguity of Greatness

Author :Guy Maclean Rogers

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Very absorbing." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Monkey King

The Monkey King

Author :Timothy Mo

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Won the Geoffrey Faber Prize." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses

A Novel

Author :Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Appears] not to be written by [a human being]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

Author :W. B. Yeats

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

The Mackerel Plaza

The Mackerel Plaza

A Novel

Author :Peter De Vries

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Could make you laugh out loud." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Cain

Cain

A Mystery

Author :Lord Byron

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Actually a very moving and despairing assault on biblical literalism and servile human credulity." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Hons and Rebels

Hons and Rebels

Author :Jessica Mitford

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"These pages describe the steady, determined evolution of une femme serieuse." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Scenes of Clerical Life

Scenes of Clerical Life

Author :George Eliot

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The gold standard." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Day Stalin Died

The Day Stalin Died

Author :Doris Lessing

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Deserves] reprinting in any anthology of the prose of the 20th century." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

Author :Bertrand Russell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Was the first and in many ways the most penetrating critique." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall

Author :Evelyn Waugh

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Have somehow made all this mania and ritual appear 'normal,' even praiseworthy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Meaning of Hitler

The Meaning of Hitler

Author :Sebastian Haffner

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"You can chuck out your Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest and Hugh Trevor-Roper biographies, in my opinion, and read only [this] relatively short book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law

Cases-Comments-Questions

Author :William B. Lockhart

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Great attendant volume." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

How Green Was My Valley

How Green Was My Valley

How Green Was My Valley, Book 1

Author :Richard Llewellyn

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The transition to me between reading 'books for boys' and 'adult reading' was [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Defending the West

Defending the West

A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism

Author :Ibn Warraq

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The best critique of ['Orientalism' by Edward W. Said]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Blood of the Lamb

The Blood of the Lamb

A Novel

Author :Peter De Vries

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Could make you] weep." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Plague

The Plague

Author :Albert Camus

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] imperishable novel." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus

The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend

Author :Thomas Mann

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The narrator of [this book] is relating his story against the clock, as the German homeland finds itself pulverized and encircled in the spring of 1945." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Middlemarch

Middlemarch

Author :George Eliot

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Appears] not to be written by [a human being]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The End of Faith

The End of Faith

Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Author :Sam Harris

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author is] one of the finest volunteers in this cause." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Selected Poems

Selected Poems

Author :James Fenton

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

Whatever

Whatever

Author :Michel Houellebecq

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Showed [the author] to be a highly evolved product of post-1960s disillusionment in France." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Long Long Way

A Long Long Way

Dunne Family, Book 3

Author :Sebastian Barry

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Brilliantly done." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Burr

Burr

A Novel

Author :Gore Vidal

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The best fictional re-creation of the period." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Caged Virgin

The Caged Virgin

An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam

Author :Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I would urge you all to go out and buy [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

First Love, Last Rites

First Love, Last Rites

Author :Ian McEwan

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"By then, 'everyone' had been mesmerized by [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Collected Poems

Collected Poems

Author :Robert Conquest

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

Daughter of Fortune

Daughter of Fortune

Daughter Of Fortune, Book 1

Author :Isabel Allende

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The 'subject' is assuredly family life, which is also the tempestuous subtext of much of [the author]'s nonfiction." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

How Democracies Perish

How Democracies Perish

Author :Jean-Francois Revel

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Soothingly pessimistic." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Reading Lolita in Tehran

A Memoir in Books

Author :Azar Nafisi

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A study of the relations between literature, sexuality, and power under Muslim theocracy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach

Author :Ian McEwan

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Evokes [the author's] homeland's natural beauty and the straitened sexual manners of the early 1960s." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Kim

Kim

Author :Rudyard Kipling

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[I] re-read it in one session, marveling again at how fine it is." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Covering Islam

Covering Islam

How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World

Author :Edward W. Said

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"It was with [the author's] much lesser effort, [this book], that I began to realize that there was an apparently narrow but very deep difference between us." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

On the Beach

On the Beach

Author :Nevil Shute

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] masterpiece." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Temptation of Jack Orkney

The Temptation of Jack Orkney

and Other Stories

Author :Doris Lessing

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[This story] was so good, and [it] seemed so much to know what I might be thinking myself, that I was almost afraid to read on." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Clergyman's Daughter

A Clergyman's Daughter

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"In these pages, I found some specimens of exactly the lower-middle-class family that was familiar to me from life." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Language and Silence

Language and Silence

Author :George Steiner

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] imposing collection of essays." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Humboldt's Gift

Humboldt's Gift

Author :Saul Bellow

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I was able to return [Martin Amis] the favor in a way which was to help change his life in turn, by pressing on him a copy [of this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Sour Sweet

Sour Sweet

Author :Timothy Mo

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Won the Hawthornden Prize." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Microcosm

Microcosm

A Portrait of a Central European City

Author :Norman Davies

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Illustrates [Wroclaw's] eminence as a hub of Bohemian and Prussian life as well as the epicenter of the Silesian question." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Author :Harriet Beecher Stowe

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Leaves an ineradicable 'scratch on the mind.'" - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Case of Comrade Tulayev

The Case of Comrade Tulayev

Author :Victor Serge

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Many good judges regard as the earliest and best fictional representation of the show trials." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Grass Is Singing

The Grass Is Singing

A Novel

Author :Doris Lessing

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Combines] the sad indistinctness of a melancholy memoir with the very exact realization that a huge injustice had been done to the 'native' inhabitants of the land." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Shame

Shame

A Novel

Author :Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Anatomizes] the heap of madnesses and contradictions that went to make up the nightmarish state of Pakistan." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Faggots

Faggots

Author :Larry Kramer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The book of still another friend, [the author]’s ultrahomosexual effort." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Infidel

Infidel

Author :Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Describes the escape of a young Somali woman from sexual chattelhood to a new life in Holland." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Birth of Our Power

Birth of Our Power

Author :Victor Serge

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Excellent." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Greenmantle

Greenmantle

Richard Hannay, Book 2

Author :John Buchan

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens mentioned this as one of his favorite books in a C-SPAN interview in 2007. [Source]

The Book of Evidence

The Book of Evidence

Author :John Banville

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[A] fine novel." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Threatening Storm

The Threatening Storm

The Case for Invading Iraq

Author :Kenneth M. Pollack

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the best pieces of closely marshaled evidence and reasoning ever to emerge from the wonk-world." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

Author :Oscar Wilde

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the few faultless three-act plays ever written." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The World Is What It Is

The World Is What It Is

The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul

Author :Patrick French

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Astonishing (and astonishingly authorized) biography." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Dreyfus

Dreyfus

Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century

Author :Ruth Harris

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Such an exciting book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

By Any Means Necessary

By Any Means Necessary

Trials And Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X

Author :Spike Lee

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Very interesting." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number

Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number

Author :Jacobo Timerman

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The book above all that clothed in living, hurting flesh the necessarily abstract idea of the desaparecido." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Long Affair

The Long Affair

Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800

Author :Conor Cruise O'Brien

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The most eloquent of the anti-Jeffersonian nonfictions." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Author :Rebecca West

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Wonderful book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Culture of Terrorism

Culture of Terrorism

Author :Noam Chomsky

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Has many merits." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Prophet Unarmed

The Prophet Unarmed

Trotsky 1921-1929

Author :Isaac Deutscher

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Part of a] magnificent trilogy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

In Search of Lost Time

In Search of Lost Time

Author :Marcel Proust

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Appears] not to be written by [a human being]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Dream of John Ball

A Dream of John Ball

Illustrated

Author :William Morris

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[Wrote that] men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Dance to the Music of Time

First Movement

Author :Anthony Powell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] complex, majestic, rhythmical twelve-volume novel sequence." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Borges

Borges

A Life

Author :Edwin Williamson

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[This] biography reaches the heart of the labyrinth—the intense and wondrous life of Jorge Luis Borges." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Lesser Evil

The Lesser Evil

The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1945-59

Author :Victor Klemperer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"There is a horrid fascination in reading this day-by-day chronicle as it unfolds." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall

Author :Hilary Mantel

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A service to the history it depicts, and puts the author in the very first rank of historical novelists." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Girl, 20

Girl, 20

Author :Kingsley Amis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author]'s neglected masterpiece novel." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Company Of Critics

The Company Of Critics

Social Criticsm And Political Commitment In The Twentieth Century

Author :Michael Walzer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[In this book, the author] says that most of his friends and colleagues have never even visited Washington except to protest." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Jefferson and His Time

Jefferson and His Time

Author :Dumas Malone

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"It is an honor, even when it is not a pleasure, to register disagreement with [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

History of the Conquest of Mexico

History of the Conquest of Mexico

Author :William H. Prescott

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Emboldened by the sheer bulk of the thing, I swerved into [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Armenian Golgotha

Armenian Golgotha

A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918

Author :Grigoris Balakian

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I would recommend [this book] of exceptional interest and scholarship." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Collected Poems

Collected Poems

Author :W. H. Auden

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

Persuasion

Persuasion

Author :Jane Austen

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Captain Frederick Wentworth in [this book], is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Peace And Its Discontents

Peace And Its Discontents

Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process

Author :Edward W. Said

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"At [the author's] request I even wrote an uninspired introduction to [this book], but my heart was not quite in it." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Cruel Sea

The Cruel Sea

Author :Nicholas Monsarrat

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[I read this book] about 50 times before I was 15." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Dance to the Music of Time

Third Movement

Author :Anthony Powell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"When you read [this book], you will straightaway notice that the veterans of the first world war are the instructors of the novices of the second world war." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Captive Mind

The Captive Mind

Author :Czeslaw Milosz

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I was very struck by the courtesy and grace of this famous polemic and by the way that [the author] combined firmness on his own part with an understanding of the position of others." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Bitter Lemons

Bitter Lemons

Author :Lawrence Durrell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] beautiful but patronizing memoir." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Minima Moralia

Minima Moralia

Reflections from Damaged Life

Author :Theodor Adorno

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Made a beautiful corkscrew or double-helix-shaped aphorism about the Hays Office." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Our Man in Havana

Our Man in Havana

Author :Graham Greene

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author]'s ability to evoke a sense of place and time, [...] are encoded in this book as in no other." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Lincoln

Lincoln

A Novel

Author :Gore Vidal

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] finest novel." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar

A Novel

Author :Sylvia Plath

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"When I myself first read [this book], the phrase of hers that most arrested me was the one with which she described her father's hometown." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Adventures of Augie March

The Adventures of Augie March

Author :Saul Bellow

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] most superbly rendered fictional creation." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Raj Quartet

The Raj Quartet

The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion

Author :Paul Scott

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Had spoken to my depths because it understood that the treason at midnight in 1947, and the monstrous birth of a spoiled theocracy in Pakistan, was a tragedy for the English too." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Parting the Waters

Parting the Waters

America in the King Years 1954-63

Author :Taylor Branch

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A noble edifice of work about the United States in the era of Martin Luther King." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Donkeys

The Donkeys

Author :Alan Clark

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A rugged study of British Great War generalship." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Bridge on the Drina

The Bridge on the Drina

Author :Ivo Andric

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Classic." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Martyr's Day

Martyr's Day

Chronicle of a Small War

Author :Michael Kelly

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] book about the 'first' Gulf War." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Author :Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] electrifying first book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton

The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton

Author :G. K. Chesterton

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens said this author is one of his favorite poets. [Source]

Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim

Author :Kingsley Amis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author managed] to synthesize the comic achievements of Evelyn Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Cruelty and Silence

Cruelty and Silence

War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World

Author :Kanan Makiya

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"About the Saddam tyranny and the wars and famines and plagues it had sponsored." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Dominion

Dominion

The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

Author :Matthew Scully

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Asks all the right questions about animal rights, even if it doesn't canvass all the possible answers." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Two Faces of Islam

The Two Faces of Islam

Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism

Author :Stephen Schwartz

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Argues that in order to appreciate the pluralist, tolerant side of Islam, we must confront its ugly, extremist side." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Snow

Snow

Author :Orhan Pamuk

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"From reading [this book] one might easily conclude that all the Armenians of Anatolia had decided for some reason to pick up and depart en masse." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Memoirs of a Revolutionary

Memoirs of a Revolutionary

Author :Victor Serge

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of the finest autobiographies of that same century." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Atomised

Atomised

Author :Michel Houellebecq

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Showed [the author] to be a highly evolved product of post-1960s disillusionment in France." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia

Author :George Orwell

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I was fairly soon immersed in [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Yellow Dog

Yellow Dog

Author :Martin Amis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"You might think that the contempt shown by the reporters for both their subjects and their readers is overdone, but you would be wrong." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Complete Short Stories of Saki

The Complete Short Stories of Saki

Author :H. H. Munro

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Begin with, say, 'Sredni Vashtar' or 'The Lumber-Room' or 'The Open Window.' Then see whether you can put the book down." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Voltaire's Bastards

Voltaire's Bastards

The Dictatorship of Reason in the West

Author :John Ralston Saul

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] critique of impure reason." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2

I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2

A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945

Author :Victor Klemperer

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Don't start [this book] late at night, you will not get to bed." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Tom Paine

Tom Paine

A Political Life

Author :John Keane

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Exceptional." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Terminal Moraine

Terminal Moraine

Author :James Fenton

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] first collection of published poems." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Moor's Last Sigh

The Moor's Last Sigh

Author :Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"One of [this author's] less-regarded but most magical and musical fictions." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Author :Edmund Burke

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Imperishable book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Great Melody

The Great Melody

A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke

Author :Conor Cruise O'Brien

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Tremendous biography." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Ecology of Fear

Ecology of Fear

Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster

Author :Mike Davis

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[A] depiction of a coming environmental and societal apocalypse." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Author :Fyodor Dostoevsky

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I couldn’t sleep for two nights after first reading [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Covenant with Death

Covenant with Death

Author :John Harris

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"An anti-war British novel of the trenches." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Hanged by the Neck

Hanged by the Neck

Author :Arthur Koestler

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"A life-changing book." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Main Currents of Marxism

Main Currents of Marxism

The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown

Author :Leszek Kolakowski

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Astonishing trilogy." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Enigma of Arrival

The Enigma of Arrival

Author :V. S. Naipaul

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"While recently rereading [this book], I was struck all over again by the breathtakingly observant operations of [the author's] eye and brain." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Strange Death of Liberal England

The Strange Death of Liberal England

Author :George Dangerfield

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[One of] the two greatest freehand exercises in English periodization." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Christianity

Christianity

The First Three Thousand Years

Author :Diarmaid MacCulloch

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I recommend it very highly." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Nightfrost in Prague

Nightfrost in Prague

Author :Zdenek Mlynar

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] enthralling memoir." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Tortilla Flat

Tortilla Flat

Author :John Steinbeck

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The main character] manages to lay so many women that, afterward, even the females who didn’t receive his attentions prefer to claim, rather than appear to have been overlooked, that they were included, too." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Wind Blows Away Our Words

The Wind Blows Away Our Words

Author :Doris Lessing

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Somewhat too romantic an account of the rebels fighting the Red Army in Afghanistan." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The House of the Spirits

The House of the Spirits

Author :Isabel Allende

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The 'subject' is assuredly family life, which is also the tempestuous subtext of much of [the author]'s nonfiction." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Great Terror

The Great Terror

A Reassessment

Author :Robert Conquest

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Predated Solzhenitsyn by some years in providing a morbid anatomy of Stalinism." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Adolf Hitler My Part in His Downfall

Adolf Hitler My Part in His Downfall

War (and Peace) Memoirs, Book 1

Author :Spike Milligan

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"About being a shambolic conscript in some forgotten cookhouse in the wartime British Army." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath

Author :John Steinbeck

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"[The author's] 1939 classic." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

40 Days and 40 Nights

40 Days and 40 Nights

Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

Author :Matthew Chapman

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"I recommend." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell

Author :P. J. O'Rourke

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"We all take some intellectual baggage when we set off, but [this author's], is positively weighed down." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Wolf by the Ears

The Wolf by the Ears

Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Author :John Chester Miller

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"For me the most various and illuminating account of the slavery question." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Beyond a Boundary

Beyond a Boundary

Author :C.L.R. James

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Suggests that in several ways [cricket] is not really a 'sport' at all, but more of a classical art form." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Pity of It All

The Pity of It All

A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933

Author :Amos Elon

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"The best history of the German-Jewish relationship." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things

A Novel

Author :Arundhati Roy

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Exquisite." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Platform

Platform

Author :Michel Houellebecq

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Was almost proscribed by law in France before being properly distributed." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Why I Am Not A Muslim

Why I Am Not A Muslim

Author :Ibn Warraq

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"My favorite book on Islam." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

Minty Alley

Minty Alley

Author :C.L.R. James

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Plainly influential on the early writings of V.S. Naipaul." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

The Bonfire of the Vanities

The Bonfire of the Vanities

A Novel

Author :Tom Wolfe

Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens

"Shortly after I arrived in New York, [this author] claimed to have diagnosed the same syndrome in [this book]." - Christopher Hitchens [Source]

FAQs

Q1: What is the general topic of the books recommended by Christopher Hitchens?

Christopher Hitchen's recommended books cover a range of topics, but the general theme of his recommendations is that of independent-minded thought. His selection includes both fiction and non-fiction works that make for interesting conversation and thought-provoking stories.

Christopher Hitchens recommended about fifty books that he found to be intellectually stimulating and beneficial for readers to explore.

The most recent book that Christopher Hitchens recommended before his death was Letters to a Young Contrarian, by Amity Shlaes.

Christopher Hitchens' books are primarily geared towards an adult audience who are interested in thinking deeply on challenging topics. His selections target people who seek to broaden their knowledge outside of the mainstream and to think in an independent, critical manner.

Common themes among Christopher Hitchens' book recommendations include language and linguistics, history, philosophy, science, and economics. He emphasized the importance of challenging convention and encouraged readers to explore a variety of sources to expand their understanding.