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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by…
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

by Douglas Adams

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
29,06054051 (4.21)1 / 1149
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▾LibraryThing Recommendations
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▾Member recommendations
  1. 282
    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency / The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (gandalf_grey)
  2. 2410
    The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (ut.tecum.loquerer, coliemta)
    coliemta: One's more literary and the other more science-fiction-y, but they're both bizarre, hilarious and similar in feel. Most people who like one will enjoy the other.
  3. 121
    The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (mcenroeucsb)
    mcenroeucsb: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy : Science Fiction :: The Color of Magic : Fantasy
  4. 143
    Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett (mcenroeucsb)
    mcenroeucsb: Good Omens is uneven in writing quality, but the flippant interactions between some of the angels and demons very much reminds me of Douglas Adams.
  5. 121
    Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor (Konran)
  6. 133
    The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (girlunderglass, catfantastic)
    girlunderglass: before The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - more than 20 years before it - there was THIS book about space travel, time travel, and the "ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything". Adams certainly borrowed a lot from Vonnegut.
  7. 101
    Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (mcenroeucsb)
  8. 1511
    Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (souloftherose)
    souloftherose: Although Neverwhere and The Hitchhiker's Guide (THHG) are different genres (the first is urban fantasy, the second comic science-fiction) I felt there was a lot of similarity between the characters of Richard Mayhew (in Neverwhere) and Arthur Dent (in THHG). Both are a kind of everyman with whom the reader can identify and both embody a certain 'Britishness'. And they're both stonkingly good books by British authors.… (more)
  9. 117
    The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (Nikkles)
  10. 21
    John Dies at the End by David Wong (fundevogel)
  11. 76
    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (wvlibrarydude)
    wvlibrarydude: Satire and humor that will split your gut. Read if you want to laugh at humanity.
  12. 11
    The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens (MyriadBooks)
  13. 00
    Alles außer irdisch by Horst Evers (Camaho)
  14. 00
    Year Zero by Rob Reid (aethercowboy)
    aethercowboy: Year Zero is a humorous science fiction book that pokes liberal fun at the current state of music copyright, but also tells a hilarious story in the process about aliens obsessed with Earth music (except for North Korea).
  15. 00
    Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown (fougny)
  16. 01
    Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (Waldstein)
    Waldstein: Douglas Adams's true masterpiece, albeit one of non-fiction. Far wittier and profounder than The Guide.
  17. 01
    Beforelife: A Likely Story by Randal N. M. Graham (ShelfMonkey)
  18. 01
    Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny (WildMaggie)
  19. 01
    Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley (SnootyBaronet)
  20. 01
    The Best of Henry Kuttner by Henry Kuttner (SnootyBaronet)

(see all 32 recommendations)

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▾Member reviews
English (507)  Italian (8)  French (5)  Dutch (3)  Danish (2)  Slovak (2)  Finnish (2)  Spanish (2)  German (2)  Polish (1)  Portuguese (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Catalan (1)  Hebrew (1)  All languages (538)
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Showing 1-5 of 507 (next | show all)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is by far one of the most comically bizarre books I have ever read. A must-read for anyone with a strange sense of humor. Adams has a wonderful and conversational style that keeps you reading. A quick read, but most enjoyable! ( )
  Borrows-N-Wants | Sep 22, 2018 |
This was my first venture into Douglas Adams' science fictional world, yet it didn't seem completely unfamiliar. The humor reminded me of Monty Python's Flying Circus. While it can be read just for the entertainment value, the underlying world view speaks to origins and the meaning (or maybe the meaninglessness) of life. Readers who rarely read science fiction should make an exception for this book because of its influence on popular culture. I listened to the audio version, and it's hard to imagine a better reader than Stephen Fry. ( )
  cbl_tn | Aug 26, 2018 |
The first in the trilogy of 5 books! And that is enough to explain the silliness of this series. I don't usually don't like sic-fi but I think of this as more of a humor series. It is a must read to understand the significance of 42. ( )
  ksmedberg | Aug 15, 2018 |
This is one of those books I'm supposed to like. It's a nerd classic. It's OK. It's funny sometimes, sometimes just stupid. ( )
  CSKteach | Jul 20, 2018 |
The best in the series. ( )
  dldsantos | Jul 16, 2018 |
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Showing 1-5 of 507 (next | show all)
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▾Published reviews
Humorous science fiction novels have notoriously limited audiences; they tend to be full of ''in'' jokes understandable only to those who read everything from Jules Verne to Harlan Ellison. The ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' is a delightful exception, being written for anyone who can understand the thrill that might come to a crew of interstellar explorers who discover a mysterious planet, dead for five million years, and then hear on their ''sub etha'' radio a ghostly voice, hollow, reedy, insubstantial: ''Greetings to you. ... This is a recorded announcement, as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. ...''
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Gerald Jonas (Jan 25, 1981)
 
▾Other authors

» Add other authors (53 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Adams, Douglas—primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Burton, JonathanIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Cross, PeterCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Davies, Russell TForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fry, StephenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Irineu da Costa, CarlosTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jones, TerryIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Markkula, PekkaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Molnár, IstvánTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schwarz, BenjaminTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Serra, LauraTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stamp, RobbieAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Thole, KarelCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Tidholm, ThomasTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wright, IanCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
潤, 風見Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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▾Common Knowledge
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Series (with order)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1)
Canonical title
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Original title
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Alternative titles
Original publication date
1979-10-12
People/Characters
Arthur Dent
Ford Prefect
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Marvin, the Paranoid Android
Tricia "Trillian" McMillan
Important places
Earth
Magrathea
England, UK
ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Betelgeuse
Important events
Related movies
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981 ∙ IMDb)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984 ∙ VG ∙ IMDb)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005 ∙ IMDb)
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
Don't Panic
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 star.
Quotations
Don't Panic
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot now.
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
For thousands of years, the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across—which happened to be the Earth—where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.
Life! Don't talk to me about life.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
[Book 1 Only] "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is the title of the 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" or "The Hitchhiker Trilogy", 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. Eoin Colfer, of "Artemis Fowl" fame, contracted in 2008 to write the next volume of the "Trilogy." Do not combine it with the graphic novel adaptation.
Publisher's editors
Information from the Hungarian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Pan Books
Blurbers
Publisher series
Månpocket
Science Fiction Book Club (3439)
SF Masterworks (103|New design)
Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction
Original language
English
Canonical DDC/MDS
?
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
Haiku summary
Arthur's drab lifestyle/The answer is forty two/What is the question?
(hreilly)
Wet, McKenna muttered
A curse up to God;
The clouds laughed.
▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (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 Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:16:52 -0400)

(see all 8 descriptions)

▾Library descriptions

After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.

» see all 29 descriptions

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