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College Students! discussion
Past Discussions of Group Reads
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--For those who have finished
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I read this book a while ago and found that I really liked it. I think the writer's style is nice to read but only in small doses. My family constantly quotes this book with things like "How's life, the universe, and everything" and responding "42" to random questions. There are other fantastic quotes like, "Don't Panic", and some of the parody elements are great too. One of these elements is my favorite character, Marvin the depressed robot. He is just so cynical and mopey that I can't help but laugh at everything he says. His role also really comes to life in the movie, where he is voiced by Alan Rickman. I highly recommend the movie for something funny to watch as well as a movie you can watch with your significant other that you'll both enjoy.
Sonja, I think I know what you mean about needing a pause between books. This is one of my favourite books, and when I was younger I re-read the five Doulgas-penned books a few times, but I've never been able to read all of them back-to-back without tiring.Oh, and I liked the movie too. Great cast. The plot of the movie doesn't correspond exactly with events of the book (which seems to be a point of criticism for some who liked the book), but shuffling things around from medium to medium is firmly in the spirit of the series I think.
An interesting thing to note is that the Hitchhiker's Guide first saw light as a series of radio plays, and the series of books are adapted from those. The progression of the plot was moved around, but there are quite a few sections in the book that are more or less lifted wholesale from the original plays... which probably accounts for the many diversions in the book.
My favorite quote is in the second book:"Finding discretion the better part of valor, and finding cowardice the better part of discretion, Zaphod valiantly hid himself in the cupboard."
Genius. Pure genius.
And I love the old BBC radio series.
I found some sentences to be surprisingly ringing of universal truth (sorry, been reading Austen too much), and I think Adams displays quite a knack for connecting the highly improbable things in the book in a manner that has the reader enjoying them. I've only read the first book of the Guide so far and am wondering if I should read the others? I found the lack of direction for the plot to be somewhat distracting at times. I was thoroughly amused by parts of it, but at the same time I kept wondering what this book is supposed to tell me. Any thoughts on this?
If you look for one main plot or theme, you may be sorely disappointed. Although, the conclusion of the second book (and third actually) is rather amusing and anticlimactic. Hey, for Douglas Adams, it works.
Ok. I reread the first book and am posting for the 2011/2012 fall-winter reading challenge. I love this book. It is so deliciously random and incoherent and has some of the best one-liners of any book I've read. It is the perfect novel to read aloud because it doesn't really make sense. And I'm ok with that.
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If there is one book that I'm devastated is missing, it's my collected HHGG. :c I'm torn between buying a new volume and hiding it in a special place, away from book thieves, or lending it out all over again in the crazy hope that someone else will fall in love with it as hard as I did.
Some general starting questions:
Did you like or dislike the book? Did you like the ending? Favorite characters? Favorite quotes? Did you like the author's style? Were you confused by anything in the book? etc.
Feel free to post any discussion questions that are more specific to the book once you have finished. The moderators and discussion leader will try and facilitate the discussion but since everybody's reading schedule/life schedule are different, they may not be able to do so at the beginning of the month. So, any discussion questions are welcome! :)