The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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1. quuxplusoneSep 2026
   You Gotta Have Wa, by Robert Whiting (1989), about baseball in Japan in the 1980s.

   Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818/1831), https://frankendiff.com; and Tales of the Dead, by Mrs. Utterson (1813), https://archive.org/details/talesofdead00utte

   Just started Homer's Iliad (Fagles translation) and Christopher Logue's War Music (2015).

   Just finished re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (1980). I think it holds up well. Last time I read it, I was much younger than Arthur Dent; now I'm much older. And now that we have computers with Genuine People Personalities, it's hard to remember what it was like in the Before Times.

   Recently finished Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908). For better or worse (no spoilers here), it kept me guessing.

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2. wise_bloodSep 2026
   20 years ago I read a The Guardian article about the "top geek novels". I immediately read a bunch of those.

   Recently I managed to find the list again, and it's been endless pleasure:

   - American Gods -- Neil Gaiman

   - Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley

   - The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett

   - Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks

   - Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson

   - Cloud Atlas -- David Mitchell

   - The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson

   - The Dispossessed -- Ursula K Le Guin

   - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick

   - Dune -- Frank Herbert

   - Foundation -- Isaac Asimov

   - Giles Goat-Boy -- John Barth

   - Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon

   - The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams

   - I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov

   - The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

   - The Left Hand of Darkness -- Ursula K Le Guin

   - The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick

   - Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland

   - Neuromancer -- William Gibson

   - Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell

   - Orlando -- Virgina Woolf

   - The Shockwave Rider -- John Brunner

   - Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson

   - Stand on Zanzibar -- John Brunner

   - Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein

   - Trouble with lichen - John Wyndham

   - UBIK -- Philip Dick

   - Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

   - Woman on the Edge of Time -- Marge Piercy

   (I am creatively interpreting "The Colour of Magic" as "all Discworld", "Dune" as "the six Dune books", etc.)

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3. kvgrSep 2026
   Read: American Gods, Consider Phlebas, Neuromancer, The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dune 1, Nineteen Eighty-Four listened to Foundation and I definitely recommend all.

   But for me Consider Phlebas is the best. Currently on 4th book in series, but cant get through it. Nineteen Eighty-Four doesnt feel geek novel, just political. Also great.

   I keep reading outputs from LLMs all day and don't have energy to focus on Eng written books in the evening.

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4. k310Aug 2026
   HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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5. BarbingAug 2026
   If anyone hasn't read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams is absolutely hilarious.

     The coffins stood about waist high and were constructed of what appeared to be white marble, which is almost certainly what it was - something that only appeared to be white marble.

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6. AmorymeltzerJul 2026
   >Slartibartfast: I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

   >Arthur: And are you?

   >Slartibartfast: No. That's where it all falls down of course.

   >Arthur: Pity. It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.

   Adulthood, career, marriage, parenthood, nearly everything since I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a (pre?)teen has been slowly, stubbornly learning that this exchange is basically the key to everything.

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