In a glowing review of Mortality in The New York Times, Christopher Buckley described Hitchens' seven essays as "diamond-hard and brilliant" and "word-perfect. Of course, he eagerly pounced on the opportunity, only to have his chances of survival dashed by religious zealots. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. But then the Devil offers him a bizarre deal - one extra day of life in exchange for making one thing disappear from the world.

Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will change or die. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turne dout after all - who they married, the date of their death - with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us.Many needles were sunk into my clavicle area—“Tissue is the issue” being a hot slogan in the local Tumorville tongue—and I was told the biopsy results might take a week.

Sunday Times 2012 Books of The Year Mail on Sunday's 2012 Books of The Year Independent's 2012 Books of The Year The Times 2012 Books of The Year During the US book tour for his memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens collapsed in his New York hotel room to excoriating pain in his chest and thorax. The first seven chapters are, like virtually everything [Hitchens] wrote over his long, distinguished career, diamond-hard and brilliant.When he was robbed of the ability to speak, he suddenly felt as though he had suffered a crisis of identity. He makes mordant play with the bloggers who posted remarks about how God was punishing his atheism by removing the voice with which he blasphemed.