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Letters to a Young Contrarian
by Hitchens, Christopher
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0465030327
- ISBN 13
- 9780465030323
- Seller
-
Fayetteville, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Basic Books. Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket. 2001. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 0465030327 . Lengthy gift inscription on front endpaper; very light coverwear . DJ price-clipped. ; Art Of Mentoring; 5.25 X 0.75 X 8.25 inches; 160 pages .
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
- Acme Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 3839
- Title
- Letters to a Young Contrarian
- Author
- Hitchens, Christopher
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket
- Edition
- First Edition; First Printing
- ISBN 10
- 0465030327
- ISBN 13
- 9780465030323
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2001
- Keywords
- 0465030327
Terms of Sale
Acme Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Acme Books
Biblio member since 2023
Fayetteville, New York
About Acme Books
Online bookseller with almost 40 years of bookselling experience.