Hitchens wrote for numerous publications including The Times Literary Supplement, the Daily Express, the London Evening Standard, Newsday and The Atlantic.

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Though difficult to find, Germs was the book cited most often in the Times Literary Supplement's 2004 International Books of the Year.

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"This double accolade is uniquely deserved, " said Sir Peter Stothard, chairman of the judging panel and editor of the Times Literary Supplement.

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It was never limited to books, though he was books editor for the Spectator, the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement, and an in-house reviewer, from 1983 to 1989, for the New York Times.

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The latest example, which manages quite epically to combine both those forms of snobbery, comes from Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement and Man Booker Prize judge, who has expressed fears that the standard of literary criticism has slipped and that book bloggers are some sort of literary kryptonite that will destroy the industry.

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