My favourite Christopher Hitchens book is probably “For the Sake of Argument,” a collection of sharp, funny and vicious essays on his likes and dislikes, from a period – the early ’90s – where he had a lot to write about. The thing that every Hitchens tribute mentions, rightly, is that you enjoy his writing even when you don’t agree with him, and that was very true of a lot of the essays in this book: the descriptions were specific and apt enough that they conveyed a sense of insight, of a clear-minded way of looking at things, even when you disagreed with the conclusion. And the first Hitchens interview I read was a transcript of his interview with Brian Lamb, after the publication of the book. Back then there were no clips available online, so the transcript was the only way to “see” most of these news shows and interviews. Now we have YouTube, so here is the interview (the first part is embedded here, and the others – in six parts – follow).
My favourite Christopher Hitchens book is probably “For the Sake of Argument,” a collection of sharp, funny and vicious essays on his likes and dislikes, from a period – the early ’90s – where he had a lot to write about. The thing that every Hitchens tribute mentions, rightly, is that you enjoy his writing even when you don’t agree with him, and that was very true of a lot of the essays in this book: the descriptions were specific and apt enough that they conveyed a sense of insight, of a clear-minded way of looking at things, even when you disagreed with the conclusion. And the first Hitchens interview I read was a transcript of his interview with Brian Lamb, after the publication of the book. Back then there were no clips available online, so the transcript was the only way to “see” most of these news shows and interviews. Now we have YouTube, so here is the interview (the first part is embedded here, and the others – in six parts – follow).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0BHarmpWlI