I first read this book in middle school - I can still remember biking home from the library, so excited to see what this science-fiction thing was all about. I remember enjoying it and finding it pretty funny, but not much else. So, this month, while I'm reading authors that start with the letter "A", I decided to check it out again. It's much shorter than I remember, and it's not just "pretty" funny, it's REALLY funny. I read it while at the gym on the exercise bike and laughed out loud a few too many times - the guy next to me had to switch bikes. But, it made my work-out fly by quite fast. This is the story of Arthur Dent, living in London and minding his own business, until a bulldozer shows up one morning planning to make room for a freeway. His good friend Ford Prefect - actually an alien life-form deserted on Earth 15-years earlier - tells him not to worry. Earth is about to be destroyed in roughly 12 minutes. And so it is, but Dent and Prefect are sent sailing into outer-space and saved by a passing spacecraft. With an electronic copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dent gets up to speed on all things inter-galactic as he struggles to come to terms with his new existence. More than one of my friends has made fun of my penchant for science-fiction - I'm not into all-out fantasy books or quite at the Isaac Asimov level, but I do love a good space ride, and I'm a huge fan of alternate universes and strange creatures who are quite a bit more advanced than we humans love to believe that we are. This is a fun quick read and if you like to take a vacation from reality now and again, I definitely recommend this journey.(* - listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die)
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So, do you think that you've read all 1,001 books that you have to read "before you die"? I wouldn't be surprised… Thanks for the rec… I'll add it to my queue that seems to build far faster than I can read!
Come visit and watch a movie with me =).
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