- Easy to see why this became a classic and developed something of a cult following.
What I got out of it
- A fun read and unfortunately the movie is nowhere nearly as good as the book
- Arthur Dent is constantly worried and works for a radio station. Angry because a bypass needs to be built right where his house is
- L. Prosser was a nervous man tasked with destroying Dent's house
- Ford Prefect was an alien who had lived on earth for 15 minutes and was good friends with Arthur
- Ford drags Arthur away from his home to a pub where he tells him the earth is about to be destroyed because it is in the path of an intergalactic highway which needs to be built
- A towel is one of the most massively useful items a hitchhiker can have on him
- Zaphod Beeblebrox is president of the Imperial Galaxy - job of the president was not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. Zaphod was amazing at drawing attention and loved entering with effect - perfect for the job
- Ford is in charge of updating the Hitchhiker's Guide
- Get thrown off ship they hitchhiked onto and get thrown into space but luckily get rescued by another ship, that of Zaphod
- They find a legendary and supposedly made up planet called Magrathea
- Marvin the depressed robot is a funny character
- Arthur, while exploring Magrathea, bumped into an old man who was merely sleeping until the economic recession was over and people needed the planet's services again - creating custom-made planets. One of them being Earth, commissioned by mice
- The supercomputer Deep-Thought had to think for 7.5 million years but finally came up with the answer to life, the universe and everything - 42
- Deep Thought recommends building an even better supercomputer that can ask what the ultimate question is so that 42 makes sense. This supercomputer is Earth but just 5 minutes before its 10 million year calculation was completed, the Vogons destroyed it to create the hypergalactic highway
- The mice try to extract a question from Arthur but are unable to and the book ends with Zaphod, Arthur, Ford and Trillian escaping
