Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | 1979 | Buy |
| The Restaurant at the End of the Universe | 1980 | Buy |
| Life, the Universe and Everything | 1982 | Buy |
| So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish | 1984 | Buy |
| Mostly Harmless | 1992 | Buy |
Dirk Gently Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency | 1987 | Buy |
| The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul | 1988 | Buy |
| The Salmon of Doubt | 2002 | Buy |
Douglas Adams worked as a bodyguard, barn builder, and hospital porter before writing became viable. He contributed sketches to Monty Python’s Flying Circus and wrote scripts for Doctor Who. The BBC commissioned a science fiction radio comedy from him in 1977, and the result was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The first novel adaptation was published in 1979.
The Hitchhiker’s books follow Arthur Dent, a bewildered Englishman dragged across the galaxy after Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The series ran to five novels, which Adams famously described as “a trilogy in five parts.” His comic voice combined philosophical absurdity with precise observational humor. The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42, but nobody knows what the question actually was.
Adams also wrote two Dirk Gently novels about a holistic detective who believes in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. These are stranger and more tightly plotted than the Hitchhiker’s books, drawing on concepts from quantum physics and Romantic poetry.
Adams was an early technology enthusiast who owned the first Mac sold in Europe. His nonfiction book Last Chance to See, about endangered species, anticipated much of the modern conservation movement. He died of a heart attack in 2001 in Santa Barbara, California.