H2g2 was one of the formative books of my youth (I say this now, when I'm only 18, but I read it long ago). It was one of the first science fiction novels I read, and definitely my first taste of Douglas Adams and British quirkiness.

The thing you have to get about h2g2 is that it's not enough to suspend your disbelief. You need to have it surgically removed, then seal it in an airtight box, ship the box overseas to Germany (use FedEx), and bury the box in an abandoned mine (alternatively, if you More...

I tried to read this after seeing the 2005 movie. People had always talked about how funny it was, and made references to it, so I figured the time had come to familiarize myself with it. I have admit, I didn't even actually read half of it, I hated it so much.

Reading this book reminded me of watching "My dinner with Andre," in that it was soaked in self-consciousness. I couldn't stop being aware of the writing, how full of himself the writer seemed, how smart and funny he thought he was.

The m More...

When I picked up the book I thought to be The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, little did I know that I had picked up the entire four part trilogy (yes, a trilogy of four parts, this is par for the course with Adams). It's quite fortunate I did because I think the best way to experience Adam's mad world is to read it as one book.

The book is full of the cleverest, funniest nonsense I have ever come across, so sharp it cuts itself into funnier, cleverer, more ridiculous nonsense still.

The first t More...

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was one of the first books I read that was outside the books I had to read for school. The wit and humour delivered in the first few pages really got me hooked, and I knew I'd found something special. Arthur Dent is woken up to find that someone s trying to build a bypass through his home. After an altercation with the foreman (containing one of my favourite quotes ever), his friend arrives to tell him that Earth is about to be destroyed. The fact that not on More...

I really wish I had read this when I was a little younger. It's absurd, yet brilliant. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started out as a radio programme on BBC way back in 1978. Since then it has gone through countless adaptations and been released as a TV series, a computer game, even as a comic book series.

This book centres around a Lonely Planet-like guide to the galaxy in electronic form. It follows Arthur Dent, a clueless Englishman, the eccentric Ford Prefect, who really comes from a More...

I can't decide which installment has the better last line, which would make it The Book That Has The Best Last Line Ever--Life, the Universe and Everything with: "'I've done you before, haven't I?' he said." or So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish with: "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." Yes, this review will contain spoilers other than that above. No, I will not hide its entirety because it is that kind of book, the kind whose brilliance isn More...

So this Book contains 4 of the 5 Books in the hitchhiker's series and I must say, It's a mindblowing book!

It's not only the funniest I read in a long while, it's also one of the best Science fiction books I have ever read! It's absurd, funny, compelling and I found myself glued to it! If I had more time, I had probably finished it to soon!

It showed me that whenever i'm feeling down, there will always be 1 person who had it worse. His name is Arthur Dent and he has lived through a lot of bad thin More...

the science fiction bible of the 20th Century with the cult following to prove it.

Douglas Adams was a genius who recognized that if you want to tell people the truth you wrap it inside a funny, clever, mind-bending multilayered story that takes place sometime in the future.

Uhm. Balls. Freakin' loved it. At least one through three. Brilliant.

Wouldn't waste my time with the last one (fourth) in this edition (and from what I hear the fifth one also), and I have a feeling Douglas Adams would agree with me, or at least wouldn't care who, what, or them finished it or when or where as long as there was space involved. And depressed robots. And flying. But not that real kind of flying, but the fake mental kind. And the end of the universe. And stuff. And mice. 42. Really More...

Ok, so this is 4 books in an anthology. The first book is the original hitchhikers guide and is fabulous. A work of real originality, humour, wit and acute satirical observation. No question about this being a 5 star book. 'Restaurant' is also very funny but somewhat episodic - there is a slight impression that the author is making it up as he goes along that detracts from the immersion. In the third book this impression is stronger, and there are less good jokes. 3 stars. The fourth and final b More...

I've read this series six times. I cannot (ever) remember any of it, except random character names. So I read it again. And I enjoy it every time--and it all flows away. If I were on a desert island with only one book series, I'd take this because I know I'd always be entertained anew.

My oldest just read it for the first time and giggled aloud the entire time. He actually remembers parts of it, though--evidence of evolution, I guess. Assuming, of course, that remembering Douglas Adams enhances s More...

I love some Doug Adams, but reading all 4 books in a row turned out to be somewhat more boring than I anticipated. The first book settled in quite nicely as I remembered all the salient parts and enjoyed the foolishness of the action. The 2nd book was also enjoyable, but slightly less so. And so the 3rd and 4th in the series continued the trend of being slightly less entertaining as the previous one. This is not a "trilogy" to be read in one sitting, but spaced out over time in order to truly re More...

Funniest. Sci-fi. Ever.

Everyone should read this.

There are some really good jokes in here, which I liked. However, overall it was just too long. It seemed to me as if the author changed his mind about where the plot was going halfway through; the first couple of books were great, but not so much the last two. I would have liked it more if the characters spent more time on less planets, rather than little to no time on lots. Also, I found that Adams didn't do a very good job of explaining some things, making some sections very confusing. That s More...

Charting the whole of Arthur Dent's odyssey through space are:

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.
One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the Galaxy is a very very very large and startling place.

THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.
When all questions More...

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

You'll either love it, to an extent that you'll find it hard to put it down for some mundane humanly businesses, or yo More...

I have always being a discworld fan since i was a teenager, i heard a lot about douglas adams who was the sci fi opposite to Terry pratchetts fantasy comedy. So i was very keen to see what the fuss was about. I was happy to find all four novels in one collection. First off i enjoyed this book very much, i found it funny & very very witty. All the satire was often spot on, especially regarding humans desire to answer all our reason to exist, down to government bueacracy. It was a very radom s More...

The now- long-outdated trilogy of four (the trilogy of five apparently had the short story 'Young Zaphod Plays It Safe' (view spoiler)[on the laser-board display, and for the audience at home: there were four Regans. four Regans. Or one more than they found, I forget exactly (hide spoiler)] which is in The Salmon of Doubt. So I'd recommend this edition, but not my copy because it's in terrible condition. More...

As this was of a similar length to War and Peace (well, it certainly felt like it, and it was heavy enough!!), this one took me a long time to read. However, unlike Tolstoy's offering, Douglas's Guide to the Galaxy is a very entertaining, light-hearted and thoroughly ridiculous story. It was unpredictable, witty and inarguably English. Arthur Dent was the stereotypical Englishman and a bit of a bumbling idiot, but I found him quite likeable. There were some other great supporting characters - Ma More...

I was thinking of starting my review with a quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It would neatly go to display exactly why the probability of this book's humour and insight into the ways of the universe actually existing are two to the power of two hundred and twenty-six thousand seven hundred and nine to one against. You see, after coming in contact with the universe that sprung out from the genius that was Douglas Adams, your life gets torn into the period before having read H2G2 a More...

Super fun to read. Adams has a dry humor that really makes you chuckle. I also enjoyed the funny commentary on bureaucracy and mediocrity that was peppered throughout all of the books.
My favorite book was book 4 ("So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish") because of the refreshing love story and the meeting with a truly eccentric character that seemed like he came out of a Tom Robbins novel.

I do have some complaints about how it all ended. I felt like there were a couple things that were left han More...

This is such a gorgeous masterpiece - I keep re-reading it and every time I laugh out loud again and find out something new about Life, the Universe and Everything. I love the message in the book: whatever happens,it causes something else to happen which causes something else to happen and it's not always in a chronological way and it's normal not to understand anything. That's the way it is, simply DON'T PANICK :)I adore author's subtle irony towards the standard "highly civilised", know-all so More...

I think 4 and a half stars would be better, maybe even a 5 stars, always you think like Einstein who said "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
And believe when i say, this book is the closest to a climbing fish i'v ever seen. It's just nuts. It's just delusional. It's hilarious. It has almost no story, it has words that aren't words, and has not science in it, though a lot of fiction.
The edition More...

Recently Justin borrowed this omnibus edition of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and I thought this would be a good time for me to read it for the first time. I tried to watch the movie when it came out on DVD, but I got bored and couldn't really get through the whole thing. I liked reading the books much better. I started off strong, but when I got to about the halfway point of the 3rd book, I started losing steam. I really like all of the Britishness and quirky humor and More...

It's hard to write anything unbiased about this, because it was my first true love (I wasted most of a weeklong boy scout camp devouring a gorgeous leatherbound version. in my head I sometimes confuse this time with The Neverending Story). If you like dry British humour you might find this series amazing. However, if you've seen the awful Hollywood adaptation, it's probably ruined for you.

"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of spac More...

Probably the best book ever. Well, it's certainly one of them.

I laughed a bit, cried a bit, and then I laughed a bit more.

Actually, the crying part isn't true. It's just the laughing. I did a lot of that.

It makes a lot of sense to read all four of these books in one go. I found myself tearing through this lot with a kind of appetite I'd never before witnessed. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

What can someone like me, a mortal who can only aspire to such greatness, say about the work of the legendary Douglas Adams? He made me want to write, and shaped everything I have written.

I won't try to show off by quoting catchphrases from the book, and there's no need for me to outline the story (plenty of people have done that already), so I will just beg those who haven't yet read it to do so at the earliest opportunity.

I am a huge science fiction fan and recently undertook it upon myself to read The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. Whilst, it was increadibly funny and had some very unique ideas I felt that after the 2nd part it began to become mildly repetitive and sadly I found the last few chapters a "difficult" task. I would recommend it to anyone with a keen interest in science fiction, otherwise, I belive that you will find it an arduous read.

I have been meaning to give these books a shot for years, and I am so glad that I finally did. These books are absolutely amazing. The writing is hilarious at most points. The plot is completely unpredictable and odd. The characters are ridiculous. I absolutely cannot think of another book I have read that I have enjoyed as much as I did these. I recommend them to everyone I know who I think would enjoy them as much as I did.

This is, by far, one of my all time favourite books-- easily top 5. I've read it end to end no less than half a dozen times, and have probably gone back to certain passages more than one. Whenever I've moved, it's in the stack of books to take-- even when I went overseas. That's because it has an explanation for pretty much every frustrating thing you can encounter on this earth, and it's damn funny, too. A must-read.