The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I've read the first 90 pages of this book, and I've enjoyed some bits thoroughly, especially the introduction, but is just isn't my cup of tea.

Re-read it often, catch something funny I missed everytime.

5 stars — It's difficult to describe the plot of this book. It's really just an nonsensical adventure across the galaxy with a band of idiots, a depressed robot and some mice. It has lots of technobabble, absurdist imagery, and that number of great importance 42.

In truth, none of this book makes much sense, and to me that's the joy of it. It's charming, witty, funny, with that classic British humour you expect to see in Monty Python or Roald Dahl.

There is some semblance of plot. The Earth is destroyed and our characters are thrust into space. But Adams takes the story is so many weird and unexpected directions. It is also probably the most quotable book I've ever read. There are so many memorable lines here that really make you laugh.

pre good

Review would have been at least 4 stars if rated when I first read it, which is when it came out.

This book is quite funny and had me smirking and taking screenshots here and there. Definitely inventive and also kind of all over the place, which it sounds like is just the nature of this story. It's very much Science Fiction, capital S capital F, so get ready to onboard quickly to new made up words and terms, but if you're down for that it's very quick witted and funny

El humor es.. Un poco tonto, pero en el buen sentido! Bastante rápida lectura cuando coge ritmo. Nada tiene sentido, y si lo tiene, no vas a poder hallar la respuesta. Y tampoco sabrás bien la pregunta. Más bien cógela suave, que no cunda el pánico: no vayas a terminar como una ballena que perdió el tiempo buscando su razón de ser y terminó esparramada en la superficie de un planeta.

Reseña en español ‘Guía del autoestopista galáctico': https://youtu.be/BK1XrUPVnPY

O busca “Morporkiano” en el buscador de Youtube.

Douglas Adams' “The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy” is a hilarious comedy in the vein of Monty Python (the holy grail is my favorite comedy of all time), Spaceballs, and early Zucker movies. I enjoyed every minute of it despite how corny, ridiculous, and silly it was, and even though I am obviously very late to the party, I am delighted I showed up since this (spoiler) is the funniest book I have ever read. Here is one of my favorite parts:

// “You know,” said Arthur, “it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don't know, I didn't listen.” \

The story is pretty simple. The earth is destroyed, but a single earthling, Arthur Dent, survives thanks to his best friend (and alien), Ford Prefect. The two roam around the universe using The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as guidance and a towel (because why not?) to try and learn how the third planet from the sun was created.

Since this is considered a classic by so many people, I thought I would just touch on a few bullet points that really stood out to me and made me chuckle:

• Infinite Improbability Drive – So funny! The way it is used and how it was developed was genius.
• Zaphod Beeblebrox – I mean, is there a funnier name for a character? I think not.

My book club is doing this and I think it really holds up well. I had forgotten how clever some of this is.

Fun and wacky adventure for all the family.

The book is pretty funny with its absurdist humor where each page of the novel is crazier than the last one.
The adventure is pretty short which makes you breeze through the book, bit it doesn't feel too short.
I will continue reading this book series to see what crazy things Douglas Adams comes up with in the next installments.

All in all a fun story to read on a weekend.

This book made me laugh out loud. I feel like I would have loved this book more if I had read it as a kid though. There were some parts I just wanted to get through. You can definitely see the influence either from or to Doctor Who.

This was such a British book with the dry humour and the all too familiar vibes of Doctor Who. While I did find it enjoyable, it's not enjoyable enough for me to be reading the other books in the series. Perhaps I would have in my younger days... I may have just grown out of it for now.

I felt like I can't get this time back. This book has shown up on many lists of books that were books that should be read... not missed. I don't know why. I feel like the dead ship at the end of the book (I don't think that's a spoiler!) I kept waiting for some intense sense of enlightenment. This is a spoiler... It never happened! What was the point?!
Edited to add... I'm not capable of a DNF, on purpose. Or I would have DNF'd this one for sure!

When I was traveling in India I've met a hitchhiker reading this book and became curious about it. Then, I completely forgot it until one of my best friends recommended it to me a few years ago, and it stayed on my TBR list since then.
We are almost always right about what each other likes and, therefore, I don't have an excuse for why it took me so long to pick it up. He was of course right.

This was such a fun read I ended up needing to explain to my family why I was laughing my eyes out.

I'm glad I now know the answer to the main question of Life and the Universe.

If you like British humour, enjoy Sci-fi and never read this book please do it.

This is too weird for me I'm really used to books that follows some kind of rules but this one broke them all

However this book stand I didn't love it first because it was to short and slow and it didn't try to show me deeply how this world works but overall the book is funny in his weird way it's enjoyable but just not for me

However seeing so many good reviews about this one I'd give a try to the rest

Reread: ok this was cool the first time I read it I didn't love it but now I'm finding the charm to it it's definitely silly and it has its moments Im use to more long stories but this wasn't bad

I guess I'm done?? I thought I had another 70 pages but that was just the afterward, dang. Honestly a bit upset that it ended there because I felt like it was just getting started? The dialogue actually made me laugh and the characters were great (even if the premise of the earth being totally obliterated, save for Arthur Dent, hurt my heart). T'was a good book but I'll admit that it'll take a while before I'm in the mood to read the others. After this short little adventure, I think I've had enough sci-fi for one night

Es súper divertido, tengo ganas de ver que tal los siguientes y de volver a verme la peli

The way this story is told is very funny, I love the way that it doesn't really matter. You aren't tense or scared of what is going to happen next. It's just fun. The random intervals in between definitely make it fun to read about the universe as well. Especially because it's clear that you don't need to know any of that to understand what's happening. It's really just put there because it's funny. I feel like that's how this whole ass book was written. I enjoyed it very much. 

Warning: below is more of a shared memory than a review.

Reread this recently as sort of a “buddy” read with my daughter. I feel pretty confident in saying I still love this book. It's not nostalgia talking when I say it's one of the funniest books I'd ever read and probably formed a lot of the basis of my sense of humor and ways of thinking.

It is my standard for a humorous book and my eventual attraction to Discworld started with this series. There was a whole entire phenomenon with this series in the early '80s with a radio show, PBS series, and of course the book. I'm happy to be old enough to remember all that even though I was too young to read the book at the time. I picked this book up the first time as young as the age of eleven, and a lot of it went over my head I'm sure, but I still enjoyed it.

It is more than just funny. There is great world-building, characters with huge personalities, and lots of philosophic ideas and other stuff that just gets you thinking and laughing.

I originally wanted to read Hitchhiker three years ago to cope with the sense of dread and insignificance after finishing the third book of the cosmic sci-fi series Remembrance of Earth's Past. Contrary to that series' heavy-handed, ultra-hard science fiction approach to deliver the tale of our universe, here our world is presented as a deadly place but also a silly and bewildering place to live in. Liu Cixin in his trilogy presented the view that our lives in the universe are absurd in the sense that there's no point in anything and that all our efforts to create something in it tend to be negated by the sheer force and size of the galaxy itself. Similarly, Douglas Adams wanted to convey such sense of absurdity, too. However, he did it by presenting the fuzzy, confusing, and plain unknowable truths of the universe as a series of witticisms and jokes.

I'm enjoying this change in perspective. It is far easier to swallow the fact that I as a human being am very much meaningless and mostly harmless in the grand scheme of things through comedy and silly characters than through theoretical speculations and tragic stories. Which kind of explanation is more correct doesn't matter. Afterall, as the old man Slartibartfast said, “I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”

This was such a quick and fun read. It was hilarious.

I appreciated the humor and absurdity. I wish it went deeper into the characters, since they all felt flat to me. Also, the plot felt random, which I understand is kind of the point, but it still made me lose interest in what was going to happen next since it didn't really matter. Overall it felt like a sci-fi Alice in Wonderland.

3.5
Utterly delightful. A very fun read

A quirky, humorous space romp of a novel with great one liners. However, this book lacks substance, plot, cohesion. I feel like it is a good light-hearted read, as long as you don't think about it too hard (or at all). The whole book is just characters getting into bad situations and then the author inventing funny and nonsensical ways for them to get out. It's all slapdash humor and made up words, and I found it funny but without much to make it GREAT.