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The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Cover of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Borrow Borrow
Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series!
“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—The Washington Post Book World

Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.
Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).
Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that The Hitchhiker’s Guide deleted the term “Future Perfect” from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!
“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”—Detroit Free Press
Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series!
“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—The Washington Post Book World

Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.
Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).
Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that The Hitchhiker’s Guide deleted the term “Future Perfect” from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!
“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”—Detroit Free Press
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Listen
  • OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
    900
  • Interest Level:
  • Text Difficulty:
    4 - 5


Excerpts-
  • From the cover Chapter 1
     
    The story so far:
     
    In the beginning the Universe was created.
     
    This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
     
    Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
     
    The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
     
    However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.
     
    For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pandimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
     
    For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two—and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.
     
    And this computer, which was called the Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet—especially by the strange apelike beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program.
     
    And this is very odd, because without that fairly simple and obvious piece of knowledge, nothing that ever happened on the Earth could possibly make the slightest bit of sense.
     
    Sadly, however, just before the critical moment of read-out, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished by the Vogons to make way—so they claimed—for a new hyperspace bypass, and so all hope of discovering a meaning for life was lost for ever.
     
    Or so it would seem.
     
    Two of these strange, apelike creatures survived.
     
    Arthur Dent escaped at the very last moment because an old friend of his, Ford Prefect, suddenly turned out to be from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he had hitherto claimed; and, more to the point, he knew how to hitch rides on flying saucers.
     
    Tricia McMillan—or Trillian—had skipped the planet six months earlier with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the then President of the Galaxy.
     
    Two survivors.
     
    They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever conducted—to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything.
     
    And, less than half a million miles from where their starship is drifting lazily through the inky blackness of space, a Vogon ship is moving slowly toward them.
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    Like all Vogon ships it looked as if it had been not so much designed as congealed. The unpleasant yellow lumps and edifices which protruded from it at unsightly angles would have disfigured the looks of most ships, but in this case that was sadly impossible. Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not by reliable witnesses.
     
    In fact to see anything much uglier than a Vogon ship you would have to go inside it and look at a Vogon. If you are wise, however, this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average Vogon will not...
About the Author-
  • Douglas Adams was the bestselling author of many works including The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, recently released as a major motion picture. He died in 2001.
Reviews-
  • AudioFile Magazine If you were, like Arthur Dent, unassumingly enjoying a cup of tea in your bathrobe one day and careening through space and time the next, you would likely be comforted to have a guide such as Martin Freeman along for the ride. Freeman played Arthur Dent in the recent big screen adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and his narration is pleasant and familiar, even when he's relating adventures with exotic entities and improbable circumstances. Everyone gets distinctive voices, even the computers, which, with the help of sound effects, sound computerized. There can't be too many versions of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's series, and this is a worthy addition to the pantheon. J.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
  • AudioFile Magazine The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels are ideally suited to the ear, having been adapted from a BBC radio series. The late Douglas Adams reads his own work with an actor's grace in this version, originally released in 1991. His takes on familiar characters--including Marvin the Paranoid Android, who sounds just like the actor from the radio original. The second novel in the original trilogy, RESTAURANT resolves the quests begun in the first novel--including the search for the question of life, the universe, and everything. (The unlikely answer, fans will recall, is 42.) Fans will find this reading delightful. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
  • Washington Post Book World "Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist."
  • Detroit Free Press "What's such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams's sardonically silly eyes."
Title Information+
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    Books on Tape
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Digital Rights Information+
  • OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
    Burn to CD: 
    Permitted
    Transfer to device: 
    Permitted
    Transfer to Apple® device: 
    Permitted
    Public performance: 
    Not permitted
    File-sharing: 
    Not permitted
    Peer-to-peer usage: 
    Not permitted
    All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.

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