Two things, penury aside, stopped me buying this book when it came out in hardback: the title, and a withering review in the London Review of Books by David Runciman, the gist of which was that the book was self-serving, not intentionally funny, and  his closing words  "very hard to like, never mind love". I consider Runciman no slouch, although privately wondered how it could be possible that Hitchens could produce an unlikeable book.

Of course, his spectacular conversion, if that is the word, from left to right, if that is how to put it, has dismayed many of his former comrades or colleagues, and a good deal of his career since 9/11 has been spent pugnaciously defending himself against the outrage visited upon him for becoming, inter alia, a flag-waver for the second Gulf war. Another reviewer pointed out that Hitchens has been consistently in the wrong about Iraq: wrong in 2003 when he supported the war, wrong in 1991 when he opposed the first Gulf war, and wrong in considering the Baathist regime in 1970s Iraq progressive.

Well, these are all points worthy of being addressed, and Hitchens gives a good account of himself here. One would not wish to get into an argument with him in front of an audience of any size, as one would very probably end up looking foolish (Tony Blair never sounded so negligible as he did when debating the value of religion on stage with Hitchens in Toronto a few months ago). And one tends not to pick up a book in order to pick a fight with it, especially if it is  pace Runciman  highly entertaining to read. There is also another factor, which emerged only after the book's publication: Hitchens's cancer. ("I suffer from Stage Four oesophageal cancer," he writes in a new foreword for this edition. "There is no Stage Five.") Our knowledge of this cannot but change our reaction to the book. Not in that we would wish to indulge a dying man: it's more that it changes our perspective. There are more important and moving things than a political change of heart. And anyway, in one sense his political shift has not been that great. "The synthesis for which one aimed," he says in a footnote about Solzhenitsyn, "was the Orwellian one of evolving a consistent and integral anti-totalitarianism."

And so to the title, which still strikes me as bizarre. It is, I think, an allusion to the double life that Hitchens has led since Oxford: one the one hand, a committed agitator against oppression, on the other, a dedicated bon vivant. (He pauses at one point to illustrate his moderation, but I vividly remember an occasion when he joined an after-party party in my kitchen some time in the late 90s. We did not stint. At about six in the morning he said he was sorry to leave us, but he had to appear on what I seem to remember was Breakfast with Frost. The rest of us staggered to the TV to watch what we feared might be some kind of disaster. To our astonishment, it was David Frost who looked and sounded as though he'd been on an all-night bender. Hitchens couldn't have been more lucid and  not exactly the right word, but you know what I mean  sober.) The title also acknowledges his political shift, his central paradox. The late discovery of his Jewishness made him look again at his life; and he notes that his grandfather thought there was something "axiomatically subversive about Jewishness".

However, there is rather more to a book than its title  435 pages more, in this instance  and I fail to see how anyone could feel let down by Hitch-22. Hitchens has plucked the gowans fine but he has also travelled to enough war zones and disaster areas to know whereof he speaks, and to speak with authority and purpose; his frame of reference is enormous, his tenacity, courage and loyalty exemplary and, as anyone familiar with his work can attest, he is a master of the English sentence. I try to think of an autobiography I've enjoyed as much and the only contender that springs to mind is that of Anthony Burgess. And, funnily enough, that of Hitchens's best friend, Martin Amis.

Two things, penury aside, stopped me buying this book when it came out in hardback: the title, and a withering review in the London Review of Books by David Runciman, the gist of which was that the book was self-serving, not intentionally funny, and - his closing words - "very hard to like, never mind love". I consider Runciman no slouch, although privately wondered how it could be possible that Hitchens could produce an unlikeable book.

Of course, his spectacular conversion, if that is the word, from left to right, if that is how to put it, has dismayed many of his former comrades or colleagues, and a good deal of his career since 9/11 has been spent pugnaciously defending himself against the outrage visited upon him for becoming, inter alia, a flag-waver for the second Gulf war. Another reviewer pointed out that Hitchens has been consistently in the wrong about Iraq: wrong in 2003 when he supported the war, wrong in 1991 when he opposed the first Gulf war, and wrong in considering the Baathist regime in 1970s Iraq progressive.

Well, these are all points worthy of being addressed, and Hitchens gives a good account of himself here. One would not wish to get into an argument with him in front of an audience of any size, as one would very probably end up looking foolish (Tony Blair never sounded so negligible as he did when debating the value of religion on stage with Hitchens in Toronto a few months ago). And one tends not to pick up a book in order to pick a fight with it, especially if it is - pace Runciman - highly entertaining to read. There is also another factor, which emerged only after the book's publication: Hitchens's cancer. ("I suffer from Stage Four oesophageal cancer," he writes in a new foreword for this edition. "There is no Stage Five.") Our knowledge of this cannot but change our reaction to the book. Not in that we would wish to indulge a dying man: it's more that it changes our perspective. There are more important and moving things than a political change of heart. And anyway, in one sense his political shift has not been that great. "The synthesis for which one aimed," he says in a footnote about Solzhenitsyn, "was the Orwellian one of evolving a consistent and integral anti-totalitarianism."

And so to the title, which still strikes me as bizarre. It is, I think, an allusion to the double life that Hitchens has led since Oxford: on the one hand, a committed agitator against oppression, on the other, a dedicated bon vivant. (He pauses at one point to illustrate his moderation, but I vividly remember an occasion when he joined an after-party party in my kitchen some time in the late 90s. We did not stint. At about six in the morning he said he was sorry to leave us, but he had to appear on what I seem to remember was Breakfast with Frost . The rest of us staggered to the TV to watch what we feared might be some kind of disaster. To our astonishment, it was David Frost who looked and sounded as though he'd been on an all-night bender. Hitchens couldn't have been more lucid and - not exactly the right word, but you know what I mean - sober.) The title also acknowledges his political shift, his central paradox. The late discovery of his Jewishness made him look again at his life; and he notes that his grandfather thought there was something "axiomatically subversive about Jewishness".

However, there is rather more to a book than its title - 435 pages more, in this instance - and I fail to see how anyone could feel let down by Hitch-22 . Hitchens has plucked the gowans fine but he has also travelled to enough war zones and disaster areas to know whereof he speaks, and to speak with authority and purpose; his frame of reference is enormous, his tenacity, courage and loyalty exemplary and, as anyone familiar with his work can attest, he is a master of the English sentence. I try to think of an autobiography I've enjoyed as much and the only contender that springs to mind is that of Anthony Burgess. And, funnily enough, that of Hitchens's best friend, Martin Amis.