In a good book-room you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.
A decade after Hitchens’ ballyhooed invasion, Iraq is a wretched basket case, a nation riddled with sectarian violence, religious extremism, ruined infrastructure, poverty, high rates of childhood cancer, and sheer human misery. The country is on the verge of disintegration.