Hitch-22
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Hitchens
About this listen
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq.
He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide.
In other words, Christopher Hitchens contains multitudes. He sees all sides of an argument. And he believes the personal is political. This is the story of his life, lived large.
©2010 Christopher Hitchens (P)2010 HachetteListeners also enjoyed...
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By: Christopher Hitchens, and others
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The Four Horsemen
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry.
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Short
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By: Christopher Hitchens, and others
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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In the book that he was born to write, provocateur and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men, and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person who finds him or herself in a contrarian position than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways.
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Performance
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Here is an impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely work delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes.
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The Portable Atheist
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will engage you every step of the way. From the number one New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, comes this provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages with original pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
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Christopher Hitchens in Conversation with Salman Rushdie
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Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide.
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Very Entertaining
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No One Left to Lie To
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In No One Left to Lie To, a New York Times best seller, Christopher Hitchens casts an unflinching eye on the Clinton political machine and offers a searing indictment of a president who sought to hold power at any cost. With blistering wit and meticulous documentation, Hitchens masterfully deconstructs Clinton's abject propensity for pandering to the Left while delivering to the Right, and he argues that the president's personal transgressions were ultimately inseparable from his political corruption.
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The lies that have continued...
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"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this...should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."
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the examined life
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No new ground is covered.
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Very, very good, but very, very long.
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Critic reviews
"Hitchens also proves to be more than a capable reader; his wit, erudition, and passionate unbelief could not have been conveyed as compellingly by a surrogate. Highly recommended for all general collections." (Library Journal on God Is Not Great)
"As narrator, he contributes a pleasantly moderated voice and a listener-friendly British accent." (AudioFile Magazine on God Is Not Great)
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Where do we find our ideals? What does it mean to live for them - and to risk dying for them? For Americans during World War I, these weren't abstract questions. Young Radicals tells the story of five activists, intellectuals, and troublemakers who agitated for freedom and equality in the hopeful years before the war, then fought to defend those values in a country pitching into violence and chaos.
By: Jeremy McCarter
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World’s End
- The Lanny Budd Novels, Book 1
- By: Upton Sinclair
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Lanning “Lanny” Budd spends his first 13 years in Europe, living at the center of his mother’s glamourous circle of friends on the French Riviera. In 1913, he enters a prestigious Swiss boarding school and befriends Rick, an English boy, and Kurt, a German. The three schoolmates are privileged, happy, and precocious - but their world is about to come to an abrupt and violent end. When the gathering storm clouds of war finally burst, raining chaos and death over the continent, Lanny must put the innocence of youth behind him.
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didn't finish
- By Bird Miller on 05-08-22
By: Upton Sinclair
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Limonov
- The Outrageous Adventures of the Radical Soviet Poet Who Became a Bum in New York, a Sensation in France, and a Political Antihero in Russia
- By: Emmanuel Carrère, John Lambert - translator
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
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This is how Emmanuel Carrère, the magnetic journalist, novelist, filmmaker, and chameleon, describes his subject: "Limonov is not a fictional character. There. I know him. He has been a young punk in Ukraine, the idol of the Soviet underground; a bum, then a multimillionaire's butler in Manhattan; a fashionable writer in Paris; a lost soldier in the Balkans; and now, in the fantastic shambles of postcommunism, the elderly but charismatic leader of a party of young desperadoes."
By: Emmanuel Carrère, and others
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Arab and Jew
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David Shipler delves into the origins of the prejudices of Jews and Arabs that have been intensified by war, terrorism, and nationalism. Focusing on the diverse cultures that exist side by side in Israel and Israeli-controlled territories, Shipler examines the process of indoctrination that begins in schools; he discusses the far ranging effects of socioeconomic differences, historical conflicts between Islam and Judaism, attitudes about the Holocaust, and much more.
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'Arab and Jew' Needs a Good Editor
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The Zhivago Affair
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In May of 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to the Russian countryside to visit the country's most beloved poet, Boris Pasternak. He left concealing the original manuscript of Pasternak's much anticipated first novel, entrusted to him with these words from the author: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak knew his novel would never be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an assault on the 1917 Revolution, so he allowed it to be published in translation all over the world.
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Read this to understand Doctor Zhivago and Russia
- By KathrynVB on 10-16-14
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Existentialism and Excess
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Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.
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a capitalista biography of Sartre
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
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Stalin
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- By: Edvard Radzinsky
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The Kremlin intrigues, the private worlds of the Soviet Empire's ruling class, Radzinsky thrillingly brings them to life. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might, and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history, is solved.
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A Great Book About a Great Tyrant
- By Moon Man on 05-01-05
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The Future Is History
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- By: Masha Gessen
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Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.
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The author is an international treasure
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Stalin's Daughter
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- By: Rosemary Sullivan
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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Short
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A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions - not the other way around. With characteristic élan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative.
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Another View of our Saint
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We need more people like Christopher Hitchens
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A perfect gift for your favorite history buff, or for your own collection, this audio set from the acclaimed Eminent Lives series is a must for anyone interested in the story of America.
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Better than print!
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Good book, bad narrator
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What listeners say about Hitch-22
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- tennismike
- 09-21-10
Hitchen's own narration is a big bonus
The only thing I knew about Hitch, as close friends tend to call him, is that he is a master of the written English word. I came to admire his essays on the American political scene during the 2008 elections and found that his scalpel-sharp wit and keen twist of phrase made otherwise mundane subjects exciting. I don't even agree with many of his political or anti-religious views, but his self-effacing intellectual analysis is worth a listen. In this Audible book, Hitchens narrates his own tome, and it adds to the experience. He delivers his written words with deadpan sincerity, as if he were recounting his life over a scotch and some cigs. It is a credit to his writing that he could read his own text and still have it sound almost like a conversation. For American readers, his memoir is also an interesting peek inside the European perspective on the Boomer generation, the Cold War, and the 1960s.
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- Andrew Nicks
- 04-21-18
Essential Hitchens Reading
I’ve been a fan of Hitchens for over 10 years. I have read this book before, but thought I could try the audio version.
I’ve always enjoyed Hitchens’ talks, there’s something so engaging about them; naturally I thought I would like the experience of listening to him read his own work. I did. I believe his narration of his writing made this a tremendous listen for me.
I can understand those who had a hard time understanding him at times. I don’t feel as though he mumbled, but I can see how some listeners might have had some trouble discerning what was being said. I did have to rewind a few times to make sure I understood.
If you’re a fan of Hitchens, I strongly recommend this book. The writing is impeccable, the stories are as varied as they are interesting. He was an individual who had a unique perspective on a wide array of issues, to see where he came to these beliefs is fascinating.
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- Edin
- 05-03-19
Hitch telling the Hitch story
Excellent book, excellent experience, everything I expected and more. The interview at the end of the book is the cherry on top. Could not have picked a better piece for my very first audio book!
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- MareG
- 04-27-17
Fascinating and superb
If you're a fan of the Hitch, then this book will not disappoint, particularly if you get the audiobook as he himself narrates it. I had known he was a leftist when he was young but had no idea of the extent of his activities and it was fascinating to hear of his exploits and eventual transition to a more libertarian view. He certainly had an interesting life and even though this is a memoir there are plenty of take away facts for a raft of historical events he was involved in / witnessed. Highly recommended.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-01-15
Hard to understand
What did you love best about Hitch-22?
I loved it that Hitch narrated his own story. On the other hand his narration leaves something to be desired in that sometimes the ends of his sentences were quite inaudible. A professional narrator wouldn't have made that mistake.
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- Some Guy
- 03-27-15
Despite some crassness, a wonderful memoir.
Would you listen to Hitch-22 again? Why?
Might listen to this again. Christopher was a learned and articulate individual. Lots of depth to each sentence.
What other book might you compare Hitch-22 to and why?
His brother Peter's "The Rage Against God." Peter's book centers purely on religion, but is also nearly a quarter of the length of "Hitch-22." Introspective insight from these two men were very valuable to me.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Christopher's recounting of a fan of his that, inspired by his work and his own moral motivations, became a soldier in the U.S. military and bravely (yet unknowingly) sacrificed himself for the sake of others. It's an anecdote that transcends the political spectrum, religious beliefs, and worldviews common and nuanced.
Any additional comments?
Note that there is some cursing, and Christopher is not afraid to infer sexual intimacy. It's worth examining if you're able to stomach that, however.
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- Ryan
- 07-24-24
The detail was impressive.
Very interesting read, I enjoyed hearing his perspectives and insights on the various topics and aspects of his story.
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- Dylan Slagh
- 10-18-19
Excellent book, audio quality was poor
As a hitchens fan I loved the book, although some of the chapters about hitchens friends were a bit dull. I especially found the chapters about his time as a socialist revolutionary at oxford, his trip to cuba, and his later disillusionment with socialism to be fascinating.
I’ve listened to many hitchens interviews and speeches and never have a heard him so mumbling and with the audio quality so low. Even at maximum volume for my AirPods, I had trouble hearing and understanding what he was saying. Make sure you get a sample and listen in your usual environment before buying.
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- erin hawk
- 12-22-20
If you like any of Hitchen's other work, listen!
Loved it. Amaze ballz. Mind Blown. Brain Explosion. Ballz to the Wallz. OMG, is this not 15 words yet?!
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- PainChicago
- 03-14-20
Extraordinary Narration and Autobiography — Bravo!
Christopher Hitchens’ narration of his phenomenal work of autobiography ‘Hitch-22’ brings forth his written words, as none other could—regardless of talent. The ‘Audible’ description of the book’s duration seemed long, yet, steadily flew past, as do large formations of migrating geese, across the autumn sky. Hitchens’ voice is truly mesmerizing and when it suddenly passes, you know you will never hear it quite the same again.
The book is a flowing story, to a destinations known and unknown, yet each of the stops is explored, in lucid enough detail that one feels that one is there with him—looking at events unfurling through his eyes. There is only one exception, to this observation — noted as follows.
Hitchens’ life was well-lived. His ‘end’ was ‘sudden’, as only a cancer sufferer can understand. A person diagnosed with cancer lives an extraordinary trinity of choice:
1) fight the beast, yet as Hitchens observes, it is not really a fight.
2) Simply succumb, after a period of living, as well, as one can afford.
3) Howl like a lunatic at the moon, in a state of rage, never again: one.
His confrontation, with the omnipresent beast that assailed him is exceptionally well described, yet not in enough detail, for this ‘comrade in cancer’. He, as myself knows, knew that there is much more to be said, on this topic. If you are interested, in Hitchens’ deeper thoughts, regarding life with cancer, then I refer you to his posthumous work ‘Mortality’—a quite-moving selection of his writings, about being a cancer-sufferer.
Hitchens clearly was trying to survive. This lack of observational detail is a minor wrinkle that perhaps, by the publication date of ‘Hitch-22’, when he was still in the relative early phases of wrestling, with his own life; he used humor and disassociation, as truly the most powerful tools of survival. Most readers will be satisfied, with his narrative of cancer’s dominion over one’s forever-lost-body. Hitchens’, also and perhaps did not have the time required, before his death to experience the complete disassociation of mind and spirit, with the physical form that comes much later, in the process.
This book is a masterpiece of autobiography. Hitchens was also a masterpiece, of a human being. He is a model of the human being, as a tour-de-force for positive change. Herein, he also openly explores human frailties, in an elegant and masterful manner. His commitment and power for changing the human condition, for the better continues to inspire generations, as he will it, for a very long time. I will reread this book, as soon as I listen to ‘God is Not Great’.
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