And Yet...

Sunday Times bestseller

And Yet... gathers the previously uncollected essays of the late Christopher Hitchens into a final volume of peerless prose from one of the great thinkers of our times.

Christopher Hitchens was an unparalleled, prolific writer, who raised the polemical essay to a new art form, over a lifetime of thinking and debating the defining issues of our times. As an essayist he contributed to the New Statesman, Atlantic Monthly, London Review of Books, TLS and Vanity Fair. Any publication of a volume of Hitchens' essays was a major event on both sides of the Atlantic. Now comes a volume of Hitchens' previously uncollected essays, covering the themes that define Hitchens the thinker: literature, religion and politics. These essays remind us, once more, of the fierce, brilliant and trenchant voice of Christopher Hitchens.



Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a contributing editor to

Vanity Fair and a columnist for

Slate. He was the author of numerous books, including works on Thomas Jefferson, George Orwell, Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his international bestseller and National Book Award nominee,

god Is Not Great. His memoir,

Hitch-22, was nominated for the Orwell Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.



The range is remarkable... Literary criticism is often where he shines - the pieces on Orwell and Chesterton, in particular, are alert, nuanced and witty.



Displaying his trademark wit, and a rare humility, are Hitchens' three pieces on 'The Limits of Self-Improvement'... He's also capable of thoughtful, restrained responses to emotive subjects.



To read Hitchens is to feel not just that he is before you on the page, but that he has sequestered you for a drink. He is intensely and agreeably present.



And yet... there are few journalists who can match the verve and panache of Hitchens's prose. He mixes the loquaciousness of the barfly with the fluency of the literary artist, and could not pen a dull sentence if he tried.



A very good new collection of Mr Hitchens's work previously unpublished in book form



One of the pleasures of this collection is the frequent sense that Hitchens's voice still haunts the news and will long continue to do so.



What you will find in

And Yet...,

is a body of work that offers some of the most various, nutritious and amusing prose you are likely to encounter, and that stands as a testament to the consolations of a phrase he cherished:

litera scripta manet - the written word remains.



His force of personality is felt on every page, as is a creeping awareness of his own mortality.



A must-read for it's laugh-out-loud consideration of Ian Fleming, alongside his thoughts on Charles Dickens, Salman Rushdie, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. How sad and dull it will be to follow the next American election without his coruscating commentary.



And here is that voice again, alive, fiercely engaged with many of the same issues he left us to deal with: politics, patriotism, God or His absence, death and, inevitable, books.



This final collection displays his startling ability to write so well about so much... The sense of loss at the subjects he will not write about is more than outweighed by the pleasure at those that he did.



This posthumously published collection... is a final treat... the essays are, as ever, sharp and erudite... a pleasure to read, and for fans of Hitchens the collection will have a treasured place on the bed-side table.



The best reason to read

And Yet... is the three-part essay,

On the Limits of Self-Improvement, about Hitchens's efforts to shake his smoking and drinking habits. It's hilarious, sensible and gives two fingers to the #eatclean brigade. Contrary, witty and always brilliant, Hitch couldn't be dull even if he tried