The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is one of the funniest novels in modern science fiction. Arthur Dent’s house is being bulldozed for a bypass when his friend Ford Prefect tells him the Earth itself is about to be demolished, and the two of them hitchhike off into the galaxy.

The book is short, the humour is precise, and the line about forty two has become one of the most famous in genre fiction.