Introduction. This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

"I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe." [This final line appears in some but not all editions of the work.]

After being tortured by some Vogon poetry, Arthur and Ford are shot into the vaccuum of space to their probable death. But the most improbable of things happen and they are rescued by the Heart of Gold spaceship. I think this book is an easy read and can be a great book to try and tackle when you have a free weekend.

A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.