1001 Group Read:Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Get on your mark--get set--go!! Any one is welcome to join and comment.

Ok I'll reread it. . . had been one of the first, 'way back when!!!

Great. I started reading last night, but I only got a few pages in. Hope to complete a good portion of the book this weekend.

Just waiting for my copy to arrive, I had it in the UK. Will be joining the discussion soon.

I am listening to this book instead of reading and so far so good, Love some of the names.

Great book! I would gladly have reread it except that I have already packed my copy as we're planning on moving soon. Enjoy all!

I still giggle alittle when I hear Beeblebrox. hehehe

My book has arrived :)
Just wondering, is it just the first book that is on the 1001 list or is it the series? I know that sometimes books are counted separately on the list or occasionally together. I had 1, 2 and 4 in the UK, so am on the look out for 3 and 5.

I would love to join in. Is there a specific time-frame you're going to read it in?

I am finding this really funny, the word play. I particularly like Marvin the robot, he's too much! I can't believe I have never read this before, I always thought it wouldn't be my cup of tea. I guess it is because anything remotely Sci-Fi made me want to snore, though I have started to come round to the genre after reading Phillip K Dick and John Wyndham from the 1001 list.

Soffitta1, the 1001 list only includes the first book. However, you may enjoy it enough to read the whole series.

Paperback, welcome to the group read. You are certainly welcome to join in the group at any time and you may take as long as you want to read and comment on a book. Just enjoy yourself and the group.

I finished it and I really enjoyed it. Very funny. I really liked the satire. I thought Marvin was a hoot and I loved the ending. Well worth the read.

Thanks, I did really enjoy it, and went straight onto book 2!

Just wondering, is it just the first book that is on the 1001 list or is it the series? I know that sometimes books are counted separately on the list or occasionally together. I had 1, 2 and 4 in the UK, so am on the look out for 3 and 5.

I don't know which of his books make up the series, but the original 1001 list has two other Douglas Adams books: Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (great title!) and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Ah, I hadn't noticed, thanks for the info. I did enjoy the first two books and I plan on getting the others in the series.

The Hitchhiker's Trilogy is made up of:

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 #6 by Eoin Colfer, And Another Thing....

They get less good as the series progresses (as so often seems to be the case), and I haven't read past So Long.

I'm glad you're all enjoying it, a few people I knew read it recently and were less than impressed, so I was worried that maybe it was a book whose time had passed, much like digital watches.

Is Deep Thought in the first book? If not, it's definitely worth reading on for that. I still get the giggles (after 20 years!) when I think of some of the first scene with Deep Thought.

Bother. Now I want to re-read them...

Yeah, the series gets progressively weaker, the first two I enjoyed a lot, third and fourth were okay but haven't really given me drive to read the fifth, even if it apparently is not a bad book by any means.
But later books have come as a bit of an afterthought, so each book deliver a conclusion and there is no real need to continue further than to the point where one still enjoys the books.

17- Yes, Deep Thought is in the first book. I thought that was one of the more amusing parts, too.

Hello, all . . . I had no plans to participate in this group read because I don't own the book (I only do group reads to help me chip away at Mnt TBR). But I recently downloaded Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on my iPod, and I started listening to it today, so I'm in. So far I'm loving it. I had no idea what it was about or what it was like, so it's all been a pleasant surprise so far.

#20> Joyce, is it the radio play, or spoken word from the book? Originally Hitchhikers was a radio play, then was written as the book, then a TV series. (Then, much later, a very disappointing movie, even with Stephen Fry as the voice of the book.)

I've heard bits of the radio play, and enjoyed it. But radio plays seem to be dead, I haven't heard one (or even heard *of* one) for years now.

I can probably download the radio play from somewhere...

I didn't know that! Interesting. I heard a BBC radio play of Day of the Triffids, which was a lot better than the book, I thought. Anyway, this is the book, being read by Stephen Fry. I think he's doing a great job.

Getting off topic here :) but Day of the Triffids for me was best adapted as a BBC TV series back in the 1980s. Scared the living daylights out of me as a child.

I can definitely see it working as a radio play though. I'm getting flashes of Orson Welles' adaptation of War of the Worlds, too. I think sci-fi/fantasy would work well as radio plays, given that you let the listener's imagination fill in how things look, etc.

Googled, and found lots of hits for downloading Hitchhiker as a radio play. I know what I'll be doing when I get home tonight. ;)

Yeah i love this book It's totally funny and it's my kind of humour, you know Monty Python type.
Took me a while to actually GET it. But when I did I fell in love.
I'm not a massive fan of science fiction stuff. Not real fantasy, scary, in the future kind of thing. I do love Doctor Who and I just love H G Wells too.
But Dr who has a sort of funny element to it and H G wells is just pure, dripping with it genius. It feels like he writes from this century and not from the one he did.
Douglas Adams ROCKS!

Wookie - just a small aside here . . . I just realized the BBC radio play I listened to was the Midwich Cuckoos, not Day of the Triffids. I really enjoyed the former, and look forward to the later.

I recently read and watched Day of the Triffids (the '80s series), I really liked both.

I have now read 1-4 of the Hitchhiker's series, with number 5 in front of me. While they are still entertaining, I think they are getting more and more for fans.

How is everyone doing with the book? Are you liking it? Do you think it belongs to the 1001 list?

Eh, I don't know. I don't know that it's particularly well-written, but it's light and amusing. I liked it enough to make it worthwhile for a short, easy read, but not enough to search out the next book. I think maybe it's on the list because it was big in shaping and influencing its genre?

Oh, I thought it very much belonged on the list. The imaginative range is incredible, especially at the ending, and it also gives you quite an insight into concepts of space and humanity in the 1960s. Well worth a read.

Never mind that it inspired babel fish.com

I agree with dste - I think it is on the list because of its influence, not only on the genre, but on our lives. I had no idea about babel fish, or paranoid android, to mention just two things that have crossed over. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, nor that it shouldn't be on the list.

28 > Definitely light and amusing.

I don't think the writing style is exceptional, but Douglas is very witty and there is great word play. Very fun read, for me. Made me laugh out loud quite a few times.

I just started reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night. It's so silly, I love it so far.

Did Douglas Adams invent the e-book? ;-)