Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

From the jacket: “Pow! Freeeeoooooo! Pop pop pop! Previous best score … Seven million five hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred and … Now join the end-of-the-world party, bring your pink towel and your jogging shoes and find out if potatoes are the answer. Life, the Universe and Everything. Join Arthur Dent, earthling, ‘jerk,’ kneebiter and time-traveler; sexy space cadet Trillian; mad alien Ford Prefect; unflappable Slartibartfast; two-headed, three-armed, ex-head Honcho of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox … you’ll learn to fly. Is it the end? Or just the beginning, again. (Over five million copies of the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy books now in the hands of earthlings.)”

My take: I find reading Douglas Adams to be an exercise in contradictions. Really, nothing happens, but Arthur Dent and company save the world. The characters can seem one-dimensional, yet endlessly deep. There is nothing difficult to grasp in the novel, but it tackles all the major issues — y’know … life, the universe, and, well, everything.

In this third book of Douglas’ original trilogy, Arthur Dent is reunited with his old pal Ford Prefect, an alien who saved him, if not his world, when the Earth was slated for demolition. They’re sucked back in time and back to Earth just in time for the conclusion of the Ashes. But not for long, because they’re about to head back into outer space in order to save the universe. Between those two events, they’ll find out that cricket is actually a recreation of a violent interplanetary war, learn how being killed repeatedly by the same man can make you very bitter, and discover that the secret to flying is merely to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Oh, and that quantum physics is much like a restaurant — the math doesn’t add up the same way it does elsewhere in the universe.

A fitting conclusion to the original trilogy of books.

Oh, and it’s worth noting that picking this book up was a pre-destined choice. As I’ve mentioned before, I was having some trouble getting into Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey, so went seeking something else to break it up a bit. Jane, a character in the Fforde novel, attracts a lot of undesired romantic attention because of her retroussé nose. Imagine my surprise earlier this evening, when I discovered a retroussé nose in this novel, too! Coincidence? I think not…

Pages: 227

When you’re having a hard time getting into a book you’re in the middle of and it has nothing to do with the story itself, you might be better off putting the book down for a bit and picking up a different one.

That is to say, I have put put aside Shades of Grey in favor of Douglas Adams’ Life, the Universe, and Everything. There’s nothing wrong with the Fforde novel; I’m just not finding myself drawn in in the way I normally am with his writing. I assume it’s not him, but me. In the meantime, more erudite British humor…

The grammar question I raised last week elicited a lot of comments, so I thought maybe we’d see what you all have to say on another topic:

Many of you have collections of one sort or another — books, yarn, music, movies, games, art, ephemera, memorabilia, etc. How do you keep them from taking over your space? How do you store and/or display them to their best advantage?

Rudi and I have started seriously considering this question and we’d love to hear how others have dealt with it. Share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m still working my way through Shades of Grey, so nothing new to report on the finishing front.

More tomorrow when I’m awake…

I know I haven’t finished telling you about the books I read in 2009, but I’ve started joining reading challenges for 2010. Some are very specific, while others are more free-form. The Winter Words Reading Challenge falls into the latter category.

The idea behind it:

1. Decide on the number of books (between 3 and 9) you’d like to read during the winter season.
2. See what winter word corresponds to your choice on the challenge post.
3. Assign books to match your selected word:

The word you pick above is an acronym & the books that you read during this challenge will have to coordinate with the letters in the acronym. You can use either of the following ways to select your books: (1) A word in the title of your books must start with a letter from your chosen word. or… (2) The author’s first or last name has to begin with 1 of the letters in your acronym. “

I have faith that I’ll get nine books read before the start of spring on March 19, so my word is “snowflake.” Here’s what I think I’ll read to correspond:

S — Marcelo in the Real World, Francisco Stork
N — The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker
O — Astrid & Veronika, Linda Olsson
W — When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead*
F — Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde
L — The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver
A — Austenland, Shannon Hale
K — The Help, Kathryn Stockett
E — The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery

Since the challenge doesn’t forbid it, I do reserve the right to substitute for books that I can’t get from the library or that fail to keep my interest.

*Given that the challenge began on Dec. 21, I’m counting this novel I read last week toward my nine novels.

As promised, this is the first of my weekly book reports, where I’ll share what I finished during the week.

This week, I’ve got three reviews for you, two of which were carry-overs from the end of 2009. The third is my first book for National Just Read More Novels Month. (Yes, there is a month for everything.) (more…)