#4 in Humour
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- 216
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
- Film 2005
- On screen
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
Here the jokes are the point. This science-fiction comedy greets the destruction of Earth with a deadpan shrug and frames its story through the entries of an electronic travel guide. It is short, light and deliberately absurd, with plot very much in second place. Ideal for readers who enjoy dry humour; those wanting serious, tightly plotted science fiction should look elsewhere.
Worth knowing It began as a BBC radio series in 1978, and the novel reworks its first episodes; the radio show, the book, the 1981 TV series and the 2005 film each tell the story a little differently, and Douglas Adams was happy to let them. Short and quick, it opens what he called a trilogy in five parts. Fans mark Towel Day on 25 May, two weeks after his death in 2001.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 1979 science fiction comedy novel by English author Douglas Adams, adapted from the first four parts of his radio comedy series of the same name. It centres on the misadventures of Arthur Dent, the only man to survive the destruction of Earth, as he roams the cosmos and learns the truth behind his very existence. The novel's namesake is an in-universe electronic travel guide written in the form of an encyclopaedia, through which the story is framed.
Reading order · The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Full order & progress →- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThis book
8.68.6 / 10 - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
8.28.2 / 10 - Life, the Universe and Everything
8.18.1 / 10 - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
8.08.0 / 10 - Mostly Harmless
7.77.7 / 10 - And Another Thing...And Another Thing...–Not ranked yet
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- FilmThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.6 across 6,138 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 98% of the weight and the score stays at 8.6 — the Humour average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.0 | 178 | 3% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 98 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.6 | 5.9K | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
It has 216 pages — shorter than 91% of the ranked books in Humour.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Humour — with scores between 7.7 and 8.2, closest to this book.
