The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

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LibraryThing recommendations

Member recommendations:

ShelfMonkey recommends The toyminator by Robert Rankin

grizzly.anderson recommends The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez, "A campy-SF 50's detective story that I think will appeal to the same sense of humor."

revolutionary_marcia recommends Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

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Series (with order)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1)

Canonical Title

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Original publication date

People/Characters

Marvin (the paranoid android)

Trillian (Tricia McMillan)

(show all 8 items)

Important places

Earth (harmless)

The Heart of Gold (spaceship)

Magrathea

England, UK

Important events

Awards and honors

Ditmar Award (International Fiction, 1980)

Waterstones Books of the Century (1997, No 24)

BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, 2003, No 04)

The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (The Reader's List, 51)

Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (72)

Epigraph

Dedication

for
Johnny Brock and Clare Gorst
and all other Arlingtonians
for tea, sympathy, and a sofa

First words

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is the title of first in a series of novels (as well as the first in a series of radio dramas). The five works in the series are generally referred to as "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as well, as is the series of radio dramas. Though there are unabridged audio recordings of these works, the radio dramas are considerably different from the printed works.

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Book descriptions

Amazon.com (ISBN 0345391802, Mass Market Paperback)

Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker's Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms.

(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:16:48 -0400)

(see all 5 descriptions)