Simply, the most famous comedy science-fiction book ever written (not a great deal of competition in that genre, granted). In many ways, The Hitchhiker’s Guide… is a literary genre unto itself: piercingly mischievous, squintingly ironic, keenly observant and beautifully idealistic… and all set in space.

 

In an electron shell, it’s about a man called Arthur Dent and his alien friend Ford Prefect who wander the galaxy after the Earth is blown up to make way for a hyperspace bypass. They meet various characters along the way, including a manically depressed robot who saves their lives by striking up a casual conversation with the enemy spaceship’s computer and thereby unintentionally talking it into depression and then suicide.

 

Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC radio 4 in 1978 (available as an audiobook, left), it is a work of prescient genius from one of the most extraordinary imaginations ever to put pen to paper. It is also a weapons-grade satire, riddled with metaphors, mainly for humanity’s many failings and hypocrisies.