Book Summary 46 — Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Read this book, because Elon Musk’s biography mentioned it was his favourite childhood book, which inspired him to pursue SpaceX.

The book is a really fun, futuristic and easy read. Its writing style adds humour to the story and describes a fun complex multi-planetary universe. It’s a book full of random events, encounters and imaginative characters.

The first part ends quite abruptly and I’m sure the other 4 parts are fun to read as well. I would totally read the other parts as well, if my reading list was a bit shorter.

Favourite Quotes

Argument against God

The argument [with God] goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’

‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own argument, you don’t.’

‘Oh dear’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

Humour in the book

‘It’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelguese, and about to die of asphyxication in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.’

‘Why, what did she tell you?’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t listen’

Multi-planetary tourism problems

‘…the fabulously beautiful planet Beta-selamin is now so worries about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory it is vitally important to get a receipt.

The Answer

The answer to the great question of Life, the Universe and Everything is 42.