The Author
Interview with Douglas Adams: Desert Island Discs BBC Radio 4
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer, humorist, and dramatist.
Adams became known as an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.
He was a staunch atheist. Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion (2006) to Adams, writing on his death that "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
Reading club session: 30 November 2015: reading guide and questions for discussion.
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy" by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams' radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979. It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months.
The namesake of the novel is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional guide book for hitchhikers (inspired by the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe) written in the form of an encyclopedia.
Radio Drama Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part 1
Radio Drama Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part 2
Radio Drama Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part 3
Radio Drama Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part 4
Radio Drama Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part 5
The Film
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 British-American comic science fiction film directed by Garth Jennings, based upon previous works in the media franchise of the same name, created by Douglas Adams. It stars Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel and the voices of Stephen Fry (the guide book) and Alan Rickman (Marvin, the Paranoid Android). Shooting was completed in August 2004 and the movie was released on 28 April 2005 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in Canada and the United States. The pre-title sequence of the film was shot in Loro Parque, Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife.
Adams, who co-wrote the film's screenplay, died in 2001, before production began; the film is dedicated to him.