Mortality

During a book tour for his memoir Hitch-22 in 2010, Christopher Hitchens collapsed in his New York hotel room with severe chest pain and was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The book gathers the seven essays he then wrote about the illness for Vanity Fair before it killed him in December 2011. Their subjects include his dread that he might lose his ability to write, the torment of chemotherapy, Nietzsche's maxim that suffering which does not kill makes a person stronger, the pleasure of talk and the meaning of life. He refused to turn to religion for comfort. An eighth chapter of unfinished notes, a foreword by Graydon Carter and an afterword by his widow, Carol Blue, complete the posthumous volume.

Evernote chief executive Phil Libin said that opening the box with his copy made it finally sink in that he would never get it signed.