A Hitch in Time: Reflections Ready for Reconsideration

Christopher Hitchens

Jan 2024 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by James Wolcott and Hannibal Hills

About this audiobook

“An extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.” —James Wolcott in his introduction
 
An outstanding new collection, A HITCH IN TIME is a must have for Hitchens completists and the perfect starting point for understanding one of the most brilliant essayists of all time.

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. Familiar bêtes noires—Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton—rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. 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. The broad scope and high caliber of Hitchens’ essays allows his work to transcend the occasion for which it was written and continues to be essential reading. 

Along with an introduction by James Wolcott, A HITCH IN TIME recaptures the brilliance of Hitchens - barnstorming, cauterizing, and ultimately uncontainable.

Ratings and reviews

Woeful narrating that would make Hitch turn in his grave This collection includes some of Hitchens's best hidden gems, but I admit I didn't go very far with this audio version, giving up as far as ... well … “Woed House”. Anyone with any exposure to a tolerable education would know the proper way of saying Pelham Grenville's family name. Well, not your narrator, who deserves to be greeted by a phrase borrowed from an essay later in the book (“At the Oscars”): “You must be very proud.”

About the author

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a prolific author, columnist, editor, and book critic, writing on issues ranging from politics, to religion, to the nature of debate itself. Hitchens' 2007 manifesto God Is Not Great was a #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award nominee. His other New York Times bestsellers include Hitch 22, Arguably, and Mortality.