Arguably

I have come late to the Hitchens party, picking up this book (in its Audio version, narrated by the excellent Simon Prebble) largely because of all the press Hitchens received while on his recent deathbed. I wondered how I had managed to completely avoid any of his essays when he obviously seemed to be my kind of intellectual: unapologetically smart and annoying; not always right but always coherent; a committed atheist; completely convinced that he is speaking his own version of truth to power.
I am about halfway through with listening to this essay collection and am considering buying the book, so that I can go through it again more slowly, savouring particularly cunning turns of phrase and spending a bit more time thinking with him and against him. (I haven't gotten to the essay on why women are not funny and, since I have been forewarned, may just skip it–or respond to it somewhere else.)
I agree with another reviewer here on Goodreads that Hitchens is at his best when he is writing about other writers and their books. Perhaps I think this because, as a fellow reader, I can empathize with his engagement–both intellectual and artistic–with a book he is reading. What I can't quite fathom is the depth and breadth of this guy's library! He was disgustingly well read and well-versed in the history and literature of England and America.
I suppose this is a good place to start with Hitchens. It has made me want to read God is not Good and other titles.