The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | Book Review

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
(on Goodreads)
My rating ★★★★☆

It's only the second of January and I've already finished reading my first book of the year 2018. It was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and it was actually the audiobook version. I've rediscovered audiobooks last year and I plan to listen to them a lot in 2018. Hopefully, this way I'll get a lot more books on my "read" shelf because I'm a slow reader. It may sometimes take me months to finish a book that I'm not particularly fond of and I don't really like dropping books or putting them on-hold (even though I regularly do so). But back to the topic! This audiobook was only four and a half hours long but it still took me the whole day to listen to it. Probably because I'm not that familiar with sci-fi so I had to take breaks and it took me a while to get into it. But by the end of the narration, I really enjoyed it.

The book starts with the main character Arthur Dent trying to prevent his house from being demolished to make way for a freeway. Then Arthur's friend Ford Prefect, who is an alien in disguise, turns up to tell him that in a matter of minutes a similar fate is awaiting the Earth. Ford manages to save Arthur and they go on a journey through space, meeting aliens and discovering planets. And on their way, they are consulting The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I was surprised at how many quotes from the book I already knew, even though I never made an effort to find out anything about The Hitchhiker's Guide prior to reading/listening to it. I loved all the jokes and the philosophy in the book. I think, my favorite part was about the answer to the ultimate question of life. Particularly the idea that it's just as important to know the right question and not just the answer itself.

I think I'll re-read this book eventually, to catch all the details. And then I'll go on to reading the other books in the series.