Douglas Adams is back with the amazing, logic-defying, but-why-stop-now fifth novel in the Hitchhiker Trilogy. Here is the epic story of Random, who sets out on a transgalactic quest to find the planet of her ancestors. Line drawings. From the Hardcover edition.

We have had diaries from other Cabinet Ministers, but none I think which have been quite so illuminating... It is a fascinating diary... It is shorter than Barbara Castle's... and although it is rather more accurate than Dick Crossman's, it is distinctly funnier' - Lord Allen of Abbeydale (formerly Permanent Secretary at the Home Office) in The Times 'It has an entertainment and educational value which is unique. It is uproariously funny and passes the acid test of becoming more amusing at every subsequent reading... I will go so far as to claim that in the characters of Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, Messrs Lynn and Jay have created something as immortal as P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and Jeeves' - Brian Walden in The Standard

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. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!