Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

I am sure some people will be shocked that I gave this only four stars! I really enjoyed this, but my second time reading it I just didn't have the love for it that I did the first time. I reread this immediately after my audio reread of Good Omens (which I still need to review) which may have something to do with it. There are some brilliant bits, of course, and it still made me laugh, but I was not as captured by the characters and crazy happenings as I was the first time. Definitely still worth reading, if you have not read it yet.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

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Review: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I reread this with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club this month and really enjoyed it. It's not as laugh-out-loud funny as the Hitchhiker's Guide books, but it's delightfully weird, and I love the way everything wraps up.

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edit: I've updated this post to include my favorite quotes, which don't automatically show up on the blog when I crosspost a GoodReads review to my blog.

"It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them. 

On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever."

"You have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as 'impossible' in my dictionary. In fact," he added, brandishing the abused book, "everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing."

"So you see, the major difference between someone of my age and someone of yours is not how much I know, but how much I’ve forgotten. And after a while you even forget what it is you’ve forgotten, and after that you even forget there was something to remember. Then you tend to forget, er, whatever it was you were talking about."

The Sunday Post

The Sunday Post is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

September 21 was my birthday. I didn't get around to mentioning it because I wasn't online much that day. Sept. 21 also happens to be the birthday of H.G. Wells!

I had a great day. I had chocolate cake and my mom took me out to a restaurant called Sauce. I had a bowl of rice, vegetables and dahl that was very good.

What I read this week:
I finished Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a group read in the Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Club on GoodReads. This was a reread for me. It was great! I'll write a review soon.

I started The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. I like it so far. I'll have more to say later but for now, here's the official synopsis: "This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel The Jungle, has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse..."

I'm still following Jeff La Sala's posts for The Silmarillion Primer at Tor. The most recent is:
Morgoth Is Rendered Null And Void In An All Out War of Wrath -- the end of the Quenta Silmarillion. He has some interesting thoughts; I think I'm going to reread this post later.

Hamlette at Edge of the Precipice (on my blogroll) has posted the questions for the Tolkien Blog Party 2018. I've started to fill them out, so I'll probably post tomorrow.

The Friday 56

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice

"This was the evening of the last day of Gordon Way's life, and he was wondering if the rain would hold off for the weekend. The forecast had said changeable -- a misty night tonight followed by bright but chilly days on Friday and Saturday with maybe a few scattered showers toward the end of Sunday when everyone would be heading back into town.

Everyone, that is, other than Gordon Way.

The weather forecast hadn't mentioned that, of course, that wasn't the job of the weather forecast, but then his horoscope had been pretty misleading as well. It had mentioned an unusual amount of planetary activity in his sign and had urged him to differentiate between what he thought he wanted and what he actually needed, and suggested that he should tackle emotional or work problems with determination and complete honesty, but had inexplicably failed to mention that he would be dead before the day was out."

-- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams