The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I was told by a friend to read this book about five years ago, but I had no intention to reading it because my interest in sci-fi is less than nonexistent. However, I recently found out that Douglas Adams started his career working with Monty Python (who I obviously love) and after the unbearable depression brought on by Hill of Dreams, I decided to give it a try since I heard it was really funny. I was very pleasantly surprised because, first of all, it's hysterical, and second, the sci-fi aspect isn't even important. Unlike most sci-fi novels, it doesn't even have a coherent plot, let alone any sort of typical plot trajectory (I mean, there's a computer trying to find out the question to the answer they already have, there's nothing normal here). I did find it a little exhausting because it's just too much stuffed in there, it's a bit hyperactive in the sheer amount of humour squeezed into this little book, it gets a bit feverishly zany at times. Mostly it's a lot like a Doctor Who episode written by Monty Python, so it couldn't fail to be entertaining. Once I got the hang of the somewhat bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland logic, it could be a bit predictable, but some of the humour was so good that I felt like I was in the Killing Joke Monty Python sketch (where a man invents a joke so funny that it kills anyone who hears/reads it). My favourite parts were probably the slightly political commentary on the mad bureaucracy of the world (like the Earth being demolished to build a galactic bypass and the aliens who came to destroy it reprimanding the population of the planet for noting taking interest in 'regional affairs' and ignoring the notices of the planning committee). For a book written at the end of the 1970s, it's incredibly accurate about modern-day technology and the problems it has brought. I think I was in a mood to really appreciate this book because my computer recently 'updated' (read: been majorly downgraded by Windows without my permission) and has been causing me endless problems. As a person who has no respect for plot structure, I loved the long, utterly extra digressions that the book is full of (and that tend to shove the story aside), and I'll definitely be back for the sequels, since it was extraordinarily helpful in relieving my depression.