The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

By Douglas Adams

Back in the age of the dinosaurs, when I was about 12 I was given this book on tape. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but later I discovered it was the BBC radio play and I promised myself that one day I'd buy the book and read the original novel. I still laughed out loud in places. (is wrong to laugh when the Earth gets destroyed by a Vogon construction fleet, making way for a new intergalactic by-pass?)
The reason I decided to read it now was because I've just signed up to the Hastings District library adult reading programme called "Turn Up the Heat with our Adult Winter Reading Programme!"
There are all sorts of different challenges from simply reading a book of your choice to reading a memoir or biography. I decided to fulfill the "Read the Book that's been on your To Be Read list forever". Its not quite forever but I figured 30 years was long enough. 

Everyone remembers the answer to "Life, the Universe and Everything"... I remember the question too, but I was mightily disappointed to discovered I'd 'mis-remembered' the character who came up with it. 

Synopsis

Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. 
Together, this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox- the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formally TriciaMcMillan), Zaphod's girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone.; MArvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot  (whose voice I can still hear from that radio play); and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all ballpoint pens he's bought over the years. 
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars! 

Author

 

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, scriptwriter, essayist, humorist, satirist and dramatist.
Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which originated in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame (Wikipedia)

Books by the Author

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) (novel)
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) (novel)
• Life, the Universe and Everything (1982) (novel)
• The Meaning of Liff (1983 (book), with John Lloyd)
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984) (novel)
• Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (short story) (1986)
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) (novel)
• The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) (novel)
• The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990, with John Lloyd)
• Last Chance to See (1990, with Mark Carwardine) (book)
• Mostly Harmless (1992) (novel)