Christopher Hitchens professes a great admiration for Oscar Wilde in this book - mainly for Wilde's wit, but you can see that Hitchens is also influenced by Wilde's public facade. Like Morrissey, it's hard to tell what about Hitchens is real and what is adopted persona - in "Letters to a Young Contrarian" he writes in earnest about the necessity of noconformity to the survival of modern liberal society, but he also likes to show off his breadth of knowledge, his acidity and mercilessness towards cowards and fools, and his literary connections. I think Hitchens sees himself as a classical man of letters, but also concerns himself a little too much with sparring with people and crafting his own public image. That said, we could use a lot more of people like Hitchens in the public sphere.

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Providing advice to those who would go against the grain of popular or settled thought, the champion of contrarianism provides some guidelines. Christopher Hitchens musters all of his wit and, more importantly, intelligence in this short argument in favor of "thinking for oneself". ( )

Really I think I should read this every day, despite being no longer young... ( )

This is a brief book about what it takes to be a good contrarian. I think in an era where either people favor being loud, obnoxious, and ill-informed (or just willfully ignorant) or the intelligent people tend to just remain quiet to avoid, as Peter from the film Office Space would say, "avoid being hassled," Hitchens gives advice on how to stand up for something. Argue. Question everything. Do so well prepared. Being well read also helps. The book is written in a style very much like Letters to a young artist. This is a book that can be read in a short time, but it is also a book that invites rereading. I know I probably should try to reread it soon. I also think it is a book we should be handing out to more young people, maybe in high school, so they can learn a thing or two about how to handle good arguments, how to question things, and how to stand up for their beliefs in the face of opposition. Those are certainly skills that are not taught very well to young people these days.

On a more personal note, this book was timely for me given the discussions of certain folks in libraryland about whether the librarianship profession can handle argument and discussion or not. It is pretty well known the profession does not handle dissidents very well. I think this book may have a thing or two to say to those who aspire to raise questions and have discussions without being silenced by certain privileged folks. Anyhow, it gave me some food for thought in that regard.

Overall, this is a book worth reading. And if you have not read Hitchens before, it may be a pretty accessible introduction to his work and thinking. ( )

Hitchens was a cool guy ( )