God Is Not Great

How Religion Poisons Everything

By: Christopher Hitchens

Narrated by: Christopher Hitchens

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty of the double helix.

©2007 Christopher Hitchens (P)2007 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"The best of the recent rash of atheist manifestos." (Publishers Weekly)
"Effortlessly witty and entertaining as well as utterly rational." (Booklist)

Christopher At His Best

Christopher Hitchens makes his points in his usual eloquent way. This book is definitely worth your time.

Mind Blown

This is excellent and one of my favorites books. i highly recommend it to everyone.

Hitchens was a rare bird,

lots of data I slowed the play back to 80 percent. very knowledgeable. comes off offensive but you can't deny the very many contradictions in religion

Hitch At His Best

The book is genius, the reading — not so much. I’ve watched and listened to many interviews and debates with Christopher Hitchens over the years and he is undoubtedly an articulate speaker with exemplary enunciation and intonation chops. However, there are times while listening to his reading performance with God Is Not Great in which I wondered if he was either drinking or completely bored out of his mind and trying to get through the project as quickly as possible. At points his words are slurred and other times he rushes through sentences as if he can’t wait to get it over with and verging on unintelligible. This from one of the most eloquent English speakers of recent times. Perhaps he’d had a glass or two of whiskey before he sat down to tackle the reading?

I was excited at the prospect of hearing Hitchens’ mellifluous silver-tongued voice bring his own words to life and was ultimately disappointed. In fact, I got an Audible membership solely to hear Hitchens read what is arguably his most important book, and my first foray into authors reading their books has left me feeling a bit cold:

I still love the book and there is no argument that Christopher Hitchens isn’t one of the most important cultural and intellectual figures of the last 100 years, but that isn’t sufficient to forgive this paltry reading.

I have the hardcover version and will plow through that instead.

A clear headed guide to moving beyond organised religion

And and lightened and well produced story, showing the fallacy of organised religion. It’s time for the human race to move on.

Great content but difficult to hear in car

His voice is so hard to hear, I had to turn the volume way up, but then it would be too loud.

Horrible read of very interesting book

It was hard to keep attention on the content. Hitchens’ read was just awful, despite really valid and compelling points.

...Though Hitchens Is!

Wow. I started reading this at 6am on a Saturday morning and could not stop until finished that evening.

I've seen Hitchens before on news programs, and the man's opinions and intellect are irrepressible so I had some idea of what I was in for. Still, this book is just amazing. Bracing. Uncompromising. Informed. Secular.

Hitchens' assault on Religion is without reprieve and may serve as a significant crossbeam in the structure of any atheist's mental architecture. I imagine that the faithful reading this to 'study up on the enemy' will find only things that make them very angry or uncomfortable. I do NOT think Hitchens will lead to any conversions; his style is far too abrasive. However, some folks do respond best to aggressive intervention.

For me though, the best of this book is the clear breadth and depth of the author's mind. I simply cannot recall the last time I read anything so damned erudite. Agree or disagree with him, Hitchens is an amazing American intellectual.

From here, I'm actually returning to one of Hitchens' cited authors, Bart Ehrman, whom I've explored only marginally before, but that is one of the real joys of this book –if you're a sincere explorer, Hitchens points out a dazzling number of fascinating areas on the map of human progress to explore yourself. Even if you don't accept his conclusions, you may be reminded of all those Enlightenment and earlier figures who form the dim constellation of our understanding that you glossed over in (perhaps graduate-) school, if at all. I'm certainly inspired to brush up.

I love that this is narrated by Hitchins himself, which seems the best way to experience it. Those who feel they may need to recall and reference his arguments again may want a visual version in print or ebook format, but, especially now that esophageal cancer has taken his voice from him, I feel very fortunate (dare not say blessed!) to have this edition.

Entertaining

I saw this guy interviewed on the Daily Show a couple weeks back and I was intrigued by what he said was in the book, so I picked it up. When I saw it was narrated by the author, I was originally put off -- on the Daily Show he was a bit of a slow talker, and generally the authors don't do as good a job as professional narrators. But the editor did a good job chopping out the pauses, and Hitchen's tendency to mumble his hard consonants was not too bad unless there was a lot of noise in the gym.

The book is... ah, I'm not quite sure how to describe it. A screed against religion, I suppose. Initially it seems to be a long essay on why atheism... or perhaps Atheism... is the proper way to go if we as a planet are to move on. But it often devolves into a series of anecdotal vignettes on why religion and the religious are bad for... well, everything. Many times this is fascinating and sometimes it's a bit unfair (he tends to cherry-pick assumptions and forgive ignorance cases where it helps his cause and lambaste it in places where it does not), but it is always very entertaining.

I enjoyed the dense allusions to classical literature and puns; pretentious maybe, but if you are reading the book you'll probably like it too.

Great material; adequate narrator

Hitchens is brilliant, and funny as well. I truly enjoyed his little jabs that are sometimes so subtle that one wonders whether he intended any injury, however slight. His references to solipsism are "spot on", as is much of what he says. He's a splendid example of a British wit, yet a man who is concerned, in his deceptively casual manner, with the rise of religious extremism in America and the world.

Though I continue to find points of light in religion, I insist that what Hitchens and his fellow post-911 atheists (esp. Harris) have to say.

My only objection is to his narration. I appreciate the privelege to hear the author narrate, and his voice does not annoy, but his casual intonation and lack of clarity make him hard to understand at times. I just heard Hitchens interviewed today, and curiously, I think his delivery was clearer. Perhaps the chore of narration bored him a bit. Of course it's the duty of an Englishman to sound bored, so who knows?

In any case, I enjoyed the audiobook immensely, but I may have enjoyed the printed book a bit more.