A review by elerireads
Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

4.0

Christopher Hitchens was a phenomenally intelligent thinker and writer, so although he takes some rather "extreme" and controversial positions on certain issues, his arguments are incredibly difficult to refute. This book is a valuable insight into his method of thinking, how he forms his argument and what kinds of battles are important to him. I particularly enjoyed the letter on the subject of humour and wit. He is refreshingly forthright, and indeed ridicules the idea of compromise or a "grey area" in cases where, as he sees it, there is only one morally just position. However, I did find that the line between confidence and arrogance was somewhat blurred and this book did have a bit of a self-congratulatory tone. There were also an awful lot of references to writers and thinkers who I had not only never read but had never heard of, which I think made it unnecessarily inaccessible. Maybe if I reread it when I've been retired for 10 years and read everything important ever written, I might change my mind.

Ooops I didn't mean to write such a long pompous review - just shows that this was thought-provoking if nothing else.