The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

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I have very fond memories in my late teens of going to game club in Lambertville, Michigan where a group fo friends would gather on Thurday evenings once a month to play all manner of "war" games; tabletop board games with fantasy or historical themes or fantasy role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or Tunnels and Trolls. For a while though, we would sit in the parking lot and listen to the BBC adaptation of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Later in life, I found myself in Pinon, Arizona doing a student teaching gig at the local high school on the Navajo Reservation. Without any television, VERY limited access to the internet and a radio station that was in Navajo half the day, again I had the companionship of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For a certain segment of my generation, this was a cultural lynchpin.

The life of Arthus Dent, whose house is about to be demolished by the local town council to make way for a highway bypass, is completely upset when his friend, Ford Prefect, reveals that he is not, in fact, from Guilford but rather from a small planet near Betelguese. Ford has something important to tell Arthur. Ford has recently learned that the Vogon Fleet is about to destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Their only hope of survival is to hitch a ride from a passing spaceship.

Thus Arthur is wisped away on an adventure across the Galaxy with only Ford, and their copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to show them their way. Arthur escapes certain death when he is jetisoned into space by the Vogons when against all probability he is rescued by galactic criminal and ex-president of the galaxy, Zephod Beeblebrox, and his spaceship equipped with an Infinite Improbability Drive. (Paranthetically, for many years there was a listing for Zephod Beeblebrox in the telephone book for Toledo, Ohio - we tried calling many times but never got an answer - for kids who don't know what a phonebook is, ask your grand-parents).

Along the way we are introduced to Marvin the Paranoid Android, a depressed robot equipped with a Genuine People Personality (Life.... Don't talk to me about life.) as well as Eddie the Shipboard Computer and his peppy personality (incidently, for years my computers haves been renamed Eddie TSBC). We learn of pandimensional being who have been experimenting on humanity for years, and whose three dimensional projection into our dimension is that of lab rats. Finally, we learn that the answer to life the universe and everything is ..... well I won't spoil it for you. It is a deeply silly book ... or series of books

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe and Everything

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Mostly Harmless

and a sixth book, written by Adams' friends and approved by Adams' widow

And Another Thing...

I've read them all, except the last one which you can accurately imagine I am ordering at this very minute. (hoping desperately not to be disapppointed but filled with the expectation and joy of re-entering this world).

I LOVE all of these books. I LOVE Douglas Adams. And I only wish there more of his books to read. But I can return to them at any time, one of the great joys of books, and relive not only the stories, but the memories of the joy that they brought me in my youth.