The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams

Upon completing "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams, I picked up "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" (H2G2). At first, I thought I was too grown up to read the novel as the utter nonsense and adventure were almost too unrealistic. But the book grew on me, and the comedy was just top-notch. In a book that is merely 210 pages long, I am astonished by how much Douglas Adams could pack in and moreover, how well he was able to connect the various events.

One of my favorite moments: Mice on Earth, were in actuality "hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings" that were putting on an act in order to conduct an experiment to answer the ultimate question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything". However, they failed to do so as planet Earth was destroyed just before the experiment ended. Two mice that escaped the destruction met Arthur Dent, a human, on another planet called Magrathea. Instead of rebuilding Earth and undertaking another 10 million year experiment, the two mice attempt to buy Arthur Dent's brain from him. The exchange was hilarious as Arthur is surprised when the mice offer to replace his brain with a simple electronic brain. During this exchange, Zaphod Beeblebrox blurts out, "you’d just have to program it to say What? and I don’t understand and Where’s the tea? – who’d know the difference?" to which Arthur responds "WHAT?".

I would consider H2G2 a philosophical novel, one that portrays Absurdism.