A Hitch in Time

Reflections Ready for Reconsideration

By: Christopher Hitchens, James Wolcott - introduction

Narrated by: Hannibal Hills, James Wolcott

In this outstanding collection, essayist Christopher Hitchens's works are shared–a must-have for Hitchens completists seeking a further understanding of his brilliant mind.

Anthologized here for the first time, A Hitch in Time is a choice selection of Christopher Hitchens’s finest reviews, diary entries, and essays–along with a smattering of ferocious letters.

A Hitch in Time is a banquet of entertaining stories ranging from his thoughts on Salman Rushdie to being spanked by Margaret Thatcher in The House of Lords, and the night he took his son to the Oscars. Along with an introduction by James Wolcott, A Hitch in Time recaptures the brilliance of Hitchens–barnstorming, cauterizing, and ultimately uncontainable.

Average Hitchens’ essays poorly read

This contains a collection of Hitchens’ “mid career” essays that did not make it to his prior anthologies. The writing is pure Hitchens and therefore enjoyable in the moment (if read), but none of the essays will stick with you like the ones in his other collections. It got me through a transatlantic flight, but I did not think much about the essays afterwards.

However, I cannot recommend the audiobook because of the reader’s performance. It is SO over the top that I, personally, could only take it in 10 minute samplings. After having this title for several months I gave up and had to switch to a hard copy. For a couple of decades I have been listening to multiple audiobooks a month and this is the first I could not make it through only because of the narrator.

Full of ancient history

This is a random collection of essays from the '90s. If you've read Hitch 22 and God Is Not Great, you'll find little new in this collection. The narrator does a great impression of Hitch, which is really the only redeeming quality of the book.

I won't return it out of respect for the great man, and to benefit his wife and children.

Only Hitch

I found the reading of this work insufferable. As much as I enjoy Mr. Hitchen’s writings, this voice artist spat out every chapter in such a hateful way that much of the nuance was lost. Ugh. Wish I had just read it.

I love Hitchens but the reading was unbearable

Trying to absorb Hitchens words through the thick, arrogant and overly dramatic reading was impossible. This one is better to pass up on.

Avoid this ludicrously narrated slog.

Hannibal Hills gives an awful performance that makes the book practically unbearable to listen to. This was a huge disappointment to me as an avid Hitch listener. It had to be the worst narration I’ve ever heard on audible in 25 years. The narrator wends his way up and down in a sing song voice while he reads, with no sense of pace or meaningful change in inflection or accent, regardless of whom is being voiced or what the overall tone of the chapter may be.

Avoid this reader.