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Letters to a Young Contrarian

Letters to a Young Contrarian

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Letters to a Young Contrarian

by Hitchens, Christopher

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  • Paperback
Condition
New
ISBN 10
0465030335
ISBN 13
9780465030330
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About This Item

Basic Books, 2005. Trade Paperback. New. 141 pages. 7.75x4.75x0.25 inches.

Synopsis

Letters to a Young Contrarian is Christopher Hitchens' contribution, released in 2001, to the Art of Mentoring series published by Basic Books.

Reviews

On Apr 23 2014, a reader said:
. I find it a pleasure that Christopher Hitchens writes as eloquently in praise (his books on Orwell and Thomas Paine) as he does in damnation (everything else). His book LETTERS TO A YOUNG CONTRARIAN (Basic Books, 2001), with its open allusion to Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (which passes under Hitchens’s eye with a few but relatively light scorch marks) is a discussion of the role of contrarian or, as the cynics might have it, professional nay-sayer: “A disposition for resistance, however slight, against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion, or a thrill of recognition when you encounter some well-wrought phrase from a free intelligence….To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, not something you do.” The role has its temptations and dangers, of which Hitchens is gratifyingly aware—the book serves as an assurance, if you are thrown by consistent nay-sayers, that Hitchens writes in skeptic good faith. And it presents, in brief and effectively restrained form, Hitchens’s objections to religious thought. These are questions, if you pretend to faith, that you have to answer, but in form beside which Hitchens’s much-discussed GOD IS NOT GREAT is a slack and over-insistent piece of writing. Being Hitchens, the book is full of questions you should be answering (this is the twenty-first century, if you had not noticed) and plenty of humor; one story is offered “as part of my recommendation that one acts bloody-minded as often as the odds are favorable and even sometimes when they are not; it’s good exercise.” LETTERS is a spirited and enlivening book that delivers the bad news with a maximum of precision and zest.

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Details

Bookseller
Revaluation Books GB (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #
x-0465030335
Title
Letters to a Young Contrarian
Author
Hitchens, Christopher
Format/Binding
Trade Paperback
Book Condition
New New
Quantity Available
2
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10
0465030335
ISBN 13
9780465030330
Publisher
Basic Books
Place of Publication
New York, New York, U.s.a.
Date Published
2005

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Revaluation Books

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About the Seller

Revaluation Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2020
Exeter, Devon

About Revaluation Books

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New
A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
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