The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Okay. Now that the complete and utter craziness of my life is temporarily put on pause, I can find time to write this review. This is one of those books that you always hear about, so I decided that it was high time I read it. Now, in advance: let me tell you that I'm not a huge science fiction reader. I'll occasionally read it in the JT section, but this was my first trip into the science fiction section at Kettleson. To my slight surprise, I really liked the book! So, if you're a bit skeptical about science fiction, keep that in mind; you may turn out to enjoy it. Kay. Got your open mind ready? Here's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Meet Arthur Dent. For all intents and purposes, he's a normal human being. However, his whole world gets turned on its head one day when he's snatched off planet Earth by his friend Ford Prefect—seconds before Earth is demolished to make a shiny new intergalactic freeway. Turns out, Ford Prefect isn't actually an out-of-work actor, as he claimed to be. He's a humanoid life form from near Betelgeuse who has been doing research for a revised edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a guide book that can help you get wherever you need to go in the galaxy- and that advises you that a towel is "the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have"). Ford, with an extremely baffled Arthur in tow, sets off through the galaxy. On the way, we meet Zaphod Beeblebrox- the two-headed, ex-hippie, off the wall, President of the Galaxy; Trillian- his girlfriend; and Marvin- the highly-advanced robot who happens to be clinically depressed. When Ford and Arthur get sucked into Zaphod's harebrained scheme to take a stolen starship and go look for a planet that supposedly doesn't exist, things really get weird. What happens next involves a bowl of petunias, some very bad poetry, two white mice, and a very surprised sperm whale. Welcome to the galaxy!
So, I'll say it again: even if you don't usually like science fiction, give this one a try.It works for any age group and is a really remarkable book; almost not so much a SF book as just a book poking fun at anything and everything. It's really funny, has a lot of subtle jokes as well as obvious ones, and is definitely something I'll be reading again. Try it. I dare you! I double-dog-dare you! Aha, can't back out of that one, can you? Go get it at Kettleson, SHS, Blatchley, or Mt. Edgecumbe.