Hitch-22

What Hacker News says

1. piltdownmanOct 2025
   He was an articulate, erudite, and wholly original character of the sort we are so badly in need of in current times. Even his sparring with the likes of William F Buckley is akin to the political discourse of a lost civilisation in the lense of contemporary events.

   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/02/lost-heart-o...

   "Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine."

   "We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic."

   The incredible universality of his appeal is captured beautifully by Hitchens in 'Hitch 22' in relation to the odious and bellicose Newt Gingrich:

   "I was once seated in a television studio with Newt Gingrich, waiting for the debate between us to get going, when the presenter made an off-air remark that was highly disobliging to Gore. The former Republic Speaker abruptly became very prim and disapproving, and said that he would prefer not to listen to any abuse of the author of 'Lincoln' - a novel that he regarded as being above reproach. I conveyed this news to the author himself, who took the tribute as he takes all tributes: as being overdue and well-deserved."

   As for the contention re: TikTok, he'd certainly be a regular on Bill Maher in the same vein that Hitchens was in the early 2000s. He was particularly prescient and open in speaking about the separation of sexual acts from the state of being - a thesis more easily digestible now than then.

   "There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices."

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2. montgomery_rAug 2024
   For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse

   Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford

   The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch

   Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

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3. montgomery_rAug 2024
   Aargh, Formatting! Try 2 :

   For the value of ‘best’ that includes

   (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and

   (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right,

   here are some in no particular order:

   The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

   Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

   Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke

   Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein

   (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level)

   The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle

   Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler

   The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse

   A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh

   Diaries, Samuel Pepys

   Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer

   A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor

   The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester

   The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope

   Bevis, Richard Jeffries

   The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith

   The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse

   Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens

   Collected Essays, William Hazlitt

   Venice, Martin Gayford

   The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski

   The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch

   Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

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4. AlbertCoryApr 2024
   In doing my research on current books, I checked out a few from the library that were really good and definitely HN-worthy:

   Bill and Dave (Michael Malone). The history of Hewlett-Packard.

   Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes (Travis Baldree)

   Hitch-22 (Christopher Hitchens). his memoir

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5. alex1138May 2026
   Christopher Hitchens (by now, of course, most certainly dead. In fact 15 years this year) had this in Hitch-22, he discusses mortality. They'd (the newspapers) made a mixup and depicted him as "the late Christopher Hichens" ("something that one day will inarguably be true") before furiously apologizing to him, and he goes over some other people through history who have read their own obituaries
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6. AlbertCoryFeb 2024
   I'm right now reading Hitch-22 (Christopher Hitchens) and being, as you said, delighted by the language. Here's an example:

   (the context is his first meeting with Martin Amis, a lifelong friend)

   Lovers often invest their first meetings with retrospective significance, as if to try and conjure the elements of the numinous out of the stubborn witness of the everyday.

   Now that, I admire, and yet I can't imagine writing it. The only word that's at all unusual is "numinous."

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