Fallback Fiction – The books we never, ever tire of reading

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Books I can’t help but reread? An unfair call. There are so many. The Harry Potter novels, Roland’s dark quest for the Dark Tower, the chronicles of Middle Earth. All books that receive multiple readings, and have, in fact, for years. However, there is one series of books whose repeated enjoyment never ceases to give the exact same bursts of laughter given on the first reading many years ago.

In this series, Wonko the Sane has left a society so obviously crazy that it feels the need to print usage directions on a book of matches, a towel is the single most important item an interstellar traveler can carry, the end of the universe is catered by a five-star restaurant, a robot can be clinically depressed, forty-two is the meaning of life and Vogon poetry is so staggeringly bad, prolonged exposure leads to a painful death. The Hitchhiker’s “trilogy” by Douglas Adams is, was, and always will be a bizarre, funny, slightly disturbing, highly intelligent friend I return to time and time again. If you have never taken the opportunity to experience the indescribable delight that is Adams’ writing, go do it. Now. The dolphins will only wait so long.

~Brian Horne