Christopher Hitchens passed away on December 15, 2011 of esophageal cancer. In this, his last book, he chronicles the course of the path none of us ever wish to travel. He describes what it was like being diagnosed with esophageal cancer (the same type that killed his father) that had metastasized before it was even discovered. After beginning chemotherapy discusses dealing with the loss of hair, drop in weight, and all the other painful results associated with the process. In this heart-wrenching personal account we learn all about how disease transforms experience and changes our relationship to the world around us.

I didn't like this book when I read it. I don't think I have ever really liked one of his books although many are better than this one. Hitchen's always reminds me of Eeyore. Nothing is ever good or ever right. It just is.

Small but as good as any of his books. You learn, you laugh, you cry and understand. I love Hitchens' style and unsentimentality.

“You are tapped on the shoulder and told ‘The party’s over.’ Worse, what you are told is that the party is going on but that you have to leave.” -- Christopher Hitchens (not in this book).

The last flight he took before he received the diagnosis included his millionth mile with United Airlines, earning him free upgrades for life. He soon realized that his American Express card had an expiration date farther out than his own. Hitchens invested increasingly rare ink reflecting on religion, specifically the various expressions of it by others: some prayed for him; others blogged that he was getting what he deserved. In all, he suffered 19 months of chemo-therapy and radiation, to die at an age 13 years younger than his father who was taken quickly by the same cancer. Hitchens convinced me that when the time comes, I am better off to eschew the treatments and bring the curtain down without an encore.

I enjoyed this challenging book when I read it a few years ago. Now I've just read Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air and feel these two memoirs with the same theme make wonderful companion pieces. How did two brilliant, youngish people approach and deal with their own mortality? Read to understand, and understand our mortality as something we all will have to face, sooner or later.

Beautiful book by a brilliant man who was more perfect, than not. Wish he had been with us longer! Hitchens always shows how people needed to use their brain and not be so soft; he went out in style.

Strange, but this book got me into reading Christopher Hitchens. While he has many strong opinions and I can't say I fully agree with them all, I find his arguments engaging, and if nothing else I find his prose and public appearances to be entertaining. An enthralling last book.

Before reading this little book I didn't know who the author was. Then I searched a little bit and I found that he was a very controversial author, speaker and journalist. You can be agreeing with him on so many things, or not. In this book he is describing his suffering, mostly physical, because of his cancer, and gives his views about such a painful topic.
According to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross between the stages of accepting our own mortality, when we have incurable illness that is killing us fast, there is a stage where we ask God: "Why me?" And Christopher Hitchens answered: "Why not?" I am very agreeing with this. Who is better that anyone else? And what about blasphemy, (some people told him that his cancer was a punishment for his atheism) - he is answering - what about so many innocent children who suffer and die from cancer? But some evil people would live long and healthy life?
He is also writing that usually people who have cancer are called warriors, because they are battling cancer. And his questions are - but what about other sufferers who have debilitating painful incurable diseases and they live a long life suffering every day? Why they are not called warriors?
He also not agrees that suffering makes us stronger. How it can be? Physical pain destroys every possible desire to continuing to live.

Not sure why Hitchens wrote this book. Good enough read; but, not full of new wisdom - other than a good take on the cancer "process"

This version of the book is in large letters, and the book itself is probably the shortest book by Hitchens. A good read into the mind of a thinker and journalist who is confronting death. I enjoyed reading it.