Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I forget why I started browsing Amazon's list of science fiction bestsellers, because as soon as I saw the list, I completely lost my train of thought.  Say what you will about eBooks like the Kindle killing the print publishing industry, it has clearly given a huge boost to the science fiction writing business!  Many classic science fiction books are available for free for the Kindle, and many of these are now on Amazon's top 100 list.  H. G. Wells' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is currently holding the #4 spot, which is pretty impressive if you ask me!

Similarly, Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a work which celebrated its 30th birthday in 2008, is in the top 100 as a Kindle selection.  Warms a science fiction reader's heart, it does!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started out as a BBC radio drama in 1978.  It proved popular, and eventually made it into print, which is often considered to be the "real" version.  Certainly it is one of the most well known of the versions, which has been translated into more than 30 languages, and has sold over 14 million copies.

The eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide is an electronic guidebook to the entire universe, a sort of galactic encyclopedia.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy features many excerpts from the Hitchhiker's Guide, which is written in Adams' trademark dry, droll voice.  Out of everything that I felt was awkward or wrong about the recent Hitchhiker's movie, I actually felt that the guide excerpts were done really well - and very nearly the way I had imagined them in my head.

As the book opens, typical English everyman Arthur Dent is just being rescued from the destruction of the Earth by his friend, Ford Prefect.  (Unfortunately, the Earth has been scheduled for demolition in order to make way for a hyperspace bypass.  Nothing to be done, I'm afraid.)  

Ford Prefect is actually an alien, of course, and he and Arthur embark on a series of hilarious and bizarre adventures.  They are picked up by the Vogon fleet, and forced to listen to Vogon poetry, which is "the third worst poetry in the universe."  

Next they find themselves, through a series of very unlikely events, aboard the stolen space ship Heart of Gold.  The Heart of Gold runs on an infinite improbability drive, a faster than light drive which works on quantum theories of probability (or improbability, as the case may be).  The Heart of Gold has been stolen by Zaphod Beeblebrox, and also includes as passengers Marvin the Paranoid Android and Trillian, who Arthur Dent had a crush on, back on Earth.

The Heart of Gold crew travel to Magrithea, where the planet designer Slartibartfast reveals to Arthur that the Earth was more than just a planet.  I shall reveal no more, except to explain that if you have ever wondered what the joke is about "42," this is your answer.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a classic of British humor, science fiction, and British humor science fiction (a field also occupied by Red Dwarf and… um… ?).  And I for one commend the Kindle for bringing it back onto the bestseller list.