Rating: 
Summary: Biased Author
Review: This author has no journalistic ethics. I would highly discourage anyone from buying his book.
I read his article on Cyprus on Slate. Throughout the article he maintained his biased against Turkey and Turks and didn't mention a single anti-Greek argument (which he normally should do if he is trying to maintain his journalistic perspective).Then he mentions in the middle of the article, his Greek Cypriot sister-in-law. Wow! Great ethics. Perhaps you should just write for your own family then not for the people of the United States.
Rating: 
Summary: An Orwell Exegesis
Review: WHY ORWELL MATTERS
Christopher Hitchens
ISBN 0-465-03049-1 In a lifetime of reading, the writer whose books and essays have influenced my thinking more than any other is George Orwell. It is commendable that Christopher Hitchens singles him out as a writer that matters. But I am somewhat disappointed in this book. The book is not a biography. Hitchens writes about Orwell's books and ideas rather than his personal life, but he includes so little about the latter that one has difficulty determining Orwell's circumstances. For example, Hitchens tells us that Orwell's father was a non-factor in his life, but he hardly makes clear why. Elsewhere, he informs us that Orwell, who he says was awkward with women, married twice. Again, a little background on the marriages might be helpful. Hitchens sets out to defend Orwell against attacks by writers, politicians, and assorted adversaries. The book has too many such defenses. Hitchens devotes so much energy to these pursuits that in the end it is, it seems, the quality of the portrayal of Orwell's work, that is sacrificed. Not enough of the clear, unpretentious feel of Orwell's writing comes through in this book. Hitchens does call attention a number of times to Orwell's fine essay , "On Politics and the English Language". In this essay, among other things, Orwell laid out some simple rules for straightforward, honest writing. One of these rules, for example, is "Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent." Although Hitchens may be Orwell's advocate, he seems not a practitioner of his writing guidelines. Consider Hitchens' sentence, for example, "Notwithstanding this elaborate disavowal or "dementi", authors in need of a quick fix continued to use even the clapped-out Labourism of the late 1970s as a template for sub-Orwellian literary enterprises." Toward the end of this book, Hitchens writes that Orwell's thought has largely been vindicated by time and that he "need not seek any pardon on that score". Exactly, his work stands alone sufficiently not to have required the earlier defenses. In summary, Hitchens also offers that Orwell had a "commitment to language as the partner of truth". This pithy synopsis of his work gets to the heart of Orwell's writing. I wish the rest of the book were as apropos.
Rating: 
Summary: liberals hate this book, it must be good
Review: You can always judge a book by who hates it. Liberals say Hitchens is a liar, I say this is a must read. Orwell was a good communist, he had the dream in his heart for a better world. Like some sort of phantom Bobby Kennedy he saw the way the world could be and asked 'why not'. Orwell then watched as COmmunism became a viscious hideos monstrosity. Everywhere communism went it became more brutal then what it was replacing. In RUssia the communists took peasants(who had simply been suppressed under the Tsar) and murdered millions of them for no reason whatsoever. Orwell eventually migrated his views and wrote 'Animal Farm' thus opening the glass on the evils of totalitarian leadership and the blind ideals of the foolish followers Orwell matters because he opened his mind and stopped following a false ideology, an ideology that became as bad as fascism. Hitchens is a great writer and wonderful poetic author.
Rating:
Summary: liberals hate this book, it must be good
Review: You can always judge a book by who hates it. Liberals say Hitchens is a liar, I say this is a must read. Orwell was a good communist, he had the dream in his heart for a better world. Like some sort of phantom Bobby Kennedy he saw the way the world could be and asked 'why not'. Orwell then watched as COmmunism became a viscious hideos monstrosity. Everywhere communism went it became more brutal then what it was replacing. In RUssia the communists took peasants(who had simply been suppressed under the Tsar) and murdered millions of them for no reason whatsoever. Orwell eventually migrated his views and wrote 'Animal Farm' thus opening the glass on the evils of totalitarian leadership and the blind ideals of the foolish followers Orwell matters because he opened his mind and stopped following a false ideology, an ideology that became as bad as fascism. Hitchens is a great writer and wonderful poetic author.
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