Twisty plot, good fun, but you do have to pay a little bit of attention. It takes quite a while to find out what exactly the problem is going to be, and then you have to deal with the old trope of the innocent person being thought to be the murderer and needing to prove their innocence (which doesn't last too long, thankfully). At the end, it's a bit abrupt and takes a bit of thinking about it (hard to do since it involves some odd logic) but the world ignores any paradoxes and just goes right on existing. ( )

I was a fan of the first few Hitchhiker Guide books so I thought I'd check out this one. It is very much a Douglas Adams book with extremely intelligent lunacy throughout the entire book. Stuff so crazy that it just might actually work. However as others have stated this book isn't as chock full of this stuff as the Hitchhiker Guide books were. I found it to be interesting and a fairly easy read, but it left me kind of lacking at the end. ( )

This is a typical murder mystery. The owner of a corporation dies and the one due to inherit looks guilty. Did I say typical, it was written by Douglas Adams, so it isn't. This story involves a software program that converts business data into music, a detective who is in denial of his psychic abilities, a dead guy, a horse, an electric monk, and - as is typical for Douglas Adams, a perfectly ordinary sofa. Now add a 4 billion year-old spaceship and the British phone system, and I think you have it. ( )

Oddballs, including the private investigator.

Yep, I tried this book because I liked the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and probably needn't have bothered, as it was only ok. Some more of the odd sort of things happening, but not in a funny way, really, as the titular character looks into the bizarre actions of a friend, and the strange goings on that may tie everything together.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/07... ( )

Sweet storyline. Not as heavy a satire as the Hitchhiker series. I felt this was more adjusted to the genre that his other novels. ( )

gave up half way through, couldn't get interesting in the story

Reviewing ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ would, he knew, be something of a tall order. Just how tall he could not pinpoint, but surely somewhere between an Alp and a Hymalaya.

He thought briefly of prevarication. Then, because he wanted to avoid thinking about the review, he thought about prevarication some more. Doing this, he recalled that he had actually been due to consider prevarication last weekend, but had kept putting it off.

Perhaps he should approach the review in an unusual way. Sideways? Longways? Perhaps, he thought, he could write the review as a homage to Adams’s own style?

This plunged him into gloom. Trying to emulate a Master would be like trying to create a Medieval Feast flavour Pot Noodle; a fantastic idea when drunk, a lot more difficult than it sounded when attempted and ultimately leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.

He span in his chair for a while to see if this would stimulate anything. It did; a slight sense of nausea. Realising that he had not yet started to actually review the book he took comfort in the stories that Adams himself found it famously hard to get started on a story and was often blocked. One of the many differences between Adams and the reviewer resided in that word ‘famously’.

How then, to describe the novel. A novel where the eponymous Dirk is so cock-sure of himself that he only deigns to make an appearance in person a full one-third of the way into the book although, no doubt much to his pleasure, he has been the subject of fascinated discussion by other characters before this. The novel touches on time travel, Coleridge, sofas, quantum mechanics and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

It starts with a Dons dinner at a Cambridge college, it continues with a murder, it continues more with the effect that murder has on the characters and concludes with a solution. Throughout, it packs in the sort of throwaway remarks that you want to pick up and carry around, waiting for the opportunity to pass off as your own in the certainty of being hailed as a genius.

If you are feeling a little blue, you should read this book and cheer yourself up. If you are already cheerful, you should read this to sustain your mood. If you are having relationship difficulties there is probably guidance for you within its pages, if you are happy in your relationship you should read this book with your significant other. If you are of an impressionable age, you should certainly read this book, it explains how the world really operates.

It also prompted me to pull down my copy of Coleridge and read him again for the first time in many years. It really does bring home the fact that there is nothing new under the sun (except for the plot of this book, which is original in all its parts). Coleridge runs through the plot like a streaker on a sports field – not one of those horrid thin modern streakers either who, although naked, are so covered in tattoos and piercings that they could be wearing an overcoat and top hat and be more revealing, no, I’m talking streakers in the 1970s, when a policeman’s helmet covered his shame or when posh girls getting their tops off made national news and a million men bite their pipe stems in half.

The reviewer was, very much like a streaker’s genitals when he miss-times a leap over the wicket, stumped. Simply giving the book five stars and gushing praise was not adequate. He recalled the late, great John Peel’s system of awarding songs stars, the more stars, the better the song. The story goes that Peel covered the cassette in-lay card for ‘teenage kicks’ with many stars and then went on to play it twice in succession on Radio 1, the first time this had ever been done and at a time when all music didn’t sound the bloody same anyway and so people actually noticed.

Ah, could the answer be so simple? Probably not? Would Dirk have approved? Probably not and so, with a smile, it was decided:

************************************************* ( )

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is yet another example of the genius that brought us the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A plot line with as many twists as...something twisty, and as much chaos as the average family household. It's filled with Adams-esque humour, which is subtle enough not to look silly and obvious enough that even *I* get most of the jokes ;o).
Most people see the Dirk Gently novels as secondary to the Hitchhikers series, but in my opinion they approach, and in some places exceed, Hitchhikers. There is something endearing about Dirk Gently, perhaps it's his oddness that most of us can relate to in some way.

If you like slightly insane humour, or any of Adam's other works (which include several Dr. Who scripts as well as the hugely popular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), you should definitely read this book! ( )

Electric Monks, hypnotism, ghosts, salt shaker magic tricks, old college professors, a music magazine and then a dodo bird - what do they all have in common? I don't know - that's why I read this book. It wasn't as comedic as "Hitchhiker's" but obviously still fun. Highly enjoyable, good characters and amazingly random:) ( )

Great series. Always want Pizza Hut for some reason ( )

I actually prefer this to the hitchikers guide 'trilogy'. Telling the story of a very perculiar and sterotyped decective, the pages are full of witticism, irony and the laughs you always expect for douglas adams. ( )

Zany galore. ( )

Disappointing ( )

http://pixxiefishbooks.blogspot.com/2...

Another book sitting on Randal's shelf that he recommended I read. I was forewarned that it was not as good a book as the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, but it's not bad. It had some loose bits that I didn't really follow, but on the whole, it was a good read. But, of course, if you ever had to choose one or the other, Hitchhikers Guide takes the prize all the way. And that's all I have to say about that! ( )

Powerful, moving, and utterly hilarious. Join Dirk Gently (the world's most hypocritical detective) on his epic quest to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. From disgruntled ghosts to Electric Monks, this book will have you laughing from start to finish. ( )

I reread this because it was mentioned in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I enjoyed it, but like Hitchhiker’s Guide, I didn’t connect with it as much as I did when I was younger. ( )

Very, very, very funny and so dry. I was not a Hichhikers fan by a long shot so I went into this novel wondering if I was going into the a world I wasn't altogether happy to enter. I was glad I read it and it took me maybe 4 hours to read it. ( )

A fun read! ( )

I'd read this book a few times back in high school and college, and always really liked it. However, I just finished reading The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Colerige, and I remembered that there was an allusion to The Rime in Adams' first Dirk Gently novel, so I picked it up again.

It turns out that a complete understanding of the last third of the book requires one to have read the poem. The first time I had read it, I enjoyed the book, but the references to the Rime went over my head, other than knowing through cultural osmosis that somehow there was an albatross involved. This time, everything fell into place and it made things far more enjoyable. Not only was Adams clever and funny, he was literary. ( )

I first read this book during my summer in Europe when I was in college: 1990. It still remains one of my favorite books. The first time you read it, you may wonder what in the heck is going on, but by the end, all the threads are tied together and all the unusual (and seemly unconnected) elements fall into place. Adams also has a wry British wit that should appeal to Anglophiles who enjoy clever humor. I've listened to the audio version of the book (read by Adams) many times as well and find it just as entertaining as the written text. It's a delight to hear Adams read his work. ( )

I recently finished reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams for one of the challenges I'm in. It's been quite a while since I've read a Douglas Adams book (last one was Salmon of Doubt a few years back) but I knew I'm in for a treat. And indeed, it has the same excellent humor as we are already used to from the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The main plot idea seems to be Gordon Way's shooting during a call to his sister Susan's answering machine and Richard MacDuff's (an employee of Gordon's working on a program to convert data into music, currently dating Susan) seemingly implication in the murder; even if Gordon Way is dead his ghost is still roaming around. Dirk Gently, Richard's former college friend, believes in the fundamental interconnectedness of everything and tries to help Richard to prove he's innocent.

However, this is just a small part of the plot, in fact a very small one: time travel, aliens and other ideas are mixed in to create another great and funny Douglas Adams book.

Towards the end I was totally lost since I had no idea what the Coleridge connection is. After some searches on the internets, I discovered that the novel cannot be fully understood without familiarity with Samuel Taylor Coleridge life and works, particularly The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan poems. I found some notes though on a website so things got clearer.

During these searches on the net I also found out that the sofa irreversibly stuck on the stairs is based on an incident that happened during Adams’ college life.

Overall, a great read, 4 out of 5 stars.

I can't wait to read the next Dirk Gently book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. ( )

Based somewhat on a Doctor Who script written by Adams (Shada), DGHDA takes the reader (and one Dirk Gently, holistic detective) on a journey through time and space through the happenings of different characters, some dead, some alive, and some extraterrestrial robot monks.

Featuring the same wit and humor as that in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, this book is chock full of well-written and amusing prose.

A must read for any fan of Adams. ( )

very very silly, but what else would you expect from Douglas Adams. i love the Dirk Gently books, he's almost as hapless as Ford & Arthur and the adventures are almost as surreal. ( )

Another unique book from Douglas Adams. Mind expanding and totally entertaining. A book to pick up over and over. ( )

It was easy to put this one down for a couple of months--I had difficulty getting into it.

"The term 'holistic' refers to my conviction that what we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things." p. 115