"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (1979)

Another book you were kind of embarrassed that you'd never read before.

Also, another book which you'd only ever seen as a movie or heard reference of in popular culture. Dang, man! You're letting yourself down. You should really read more books...

This is the first in a long series of books which you will probably also read sooner or later. The story line is pretty simple and everyone pretty much knows it already: the Earth is destroyed on the worst Thursday afternoon ever, and Arthur Dent is saved by his friend (who has been an alien all along) only to be thrust into an adventure that promises to explain the meaning of Life and the Universe and Everything... 42.

So with a story line that has become so well known, how could this book prove to be entertaining? The story telling, man! "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is charmingly stuffed with quirky witticisms and whimsical non sequiturs, and the humor is so very British you couldn't help but love it. Honestly, the whole book was a bit like reading a 'Monty Python' movie, somehow managing to be insultingly hilarious and remarkably peppered with quotable moments. "The Hitchhiker's Guide" celebrates the absurd by pointing out how ridiculous life truly is, how arbitrary our most significant encounters can be, and how silly some of our most cherished notions really are.

At 200 pages, you can read it in a week (or even an afternoon), which is a good thing because you are going to want to read it again. There are just too many memorable parts to remember after only one reading. Like a good movie, you really can't quote it at the drop of a hat until you've seen it (or read it) more than once.

As silly as "The Hitchhiker's Guide" seems, it has some moments of depth that surprised you; moments where Adams makes it clear that asking good questions is better than getting good answers, where it is revealed that humans aren't the smartest animals on Earth because how we measure "smart" is pretty limited. Adams reminds us that bureaucracies are pervasive and possibly eternal, that Vogon poetry is the worst in the galaxy, and that cause and effect can reverberate so greatly that an offhanded comment might one day result in an alien invasion fleet being carelessly swallowed by your pet dog. In short, the overall impression "The Hitchhiker's Guide" left you with was that the Universe is weird and life is too short to take too seriously.

And don't forget to bring your towel with you when you go.

On to the next book!