Arguably: Essays

Arguably: Essays (2011) is Christopher Hitchens' last essay collection. There are a staggering 107 essays from a variety of publications-especially Vanity Fair, Slate, and The Atlantic  among other publications. This includes a number of book reviews from unlikely books like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows to others that would seems more likely to be among his interests like A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne and Norman Sherry's second volume of the biography of Graham Greene. There are also several introductions to books like Animal Farm by George Orwell and Out Man In Havana by Graham Greene. The book is broken into the following sections: "All American," ""Eclectic Affinities," "Amusements, Annoyances, and Disappointments," "Offshore Accounts," "Legacies of Totalitarianism," "Words' Worth." I think I can agree with Hitchens on many writers and thinkers who we both admire, which include: Orwell, Greene, Evelyn Waugh, John Updike, Saul Bellow, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, J.G. Ballard, Gustav Flaubert, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Several of the subjects he discussed in his essay inspire me to seek out their work, for example: Charles Dickens (limited to having only read two novels), Philip Larkin, P.G. Wodehouse, Anthony Powell, George Fraser, and Hillary Mantell. All in all, it is a very interesting, engaging and eclectic collection of essays and there are very few that I do not agree with or find annoying. It is a wonderful legacy for the recently departed author.