The Hitchhikers's Guide To The Galaxy (#1)

All of the Hitchhikers books are easy to read, short and accessible, with this being the essential place to start.

The first three books are excellent:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

• Life, the Universe and Everything

But it goes a bit awry around book #4 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish - when the comedy isn't quite fresh enough.

This dip recovers later on by venturing into 'Dirk Gently' territory. I love just about everything written by wonderful Douglas Adams.

Hitchhikers is quintessentially British humour: Man ventures into space in his dressing gown, meets a two-headed swashbuckler, a paranoid android called Marvin who depresses everyone, and gets into wacky scrapes by the seat of his pants while trying to work it all out.

Hitchhiker's is funny, intelligent and very odd. Fabulous sci-fi comedy.

There's a terrifically bad TV series knocking around with rubber aliens and horrendous special effects from the 1980s. For some reason, Hitchhikers didn’t transition to the screen very well, probably because of the dry British humour and the low budgets back then.

If you like this, check out Roald Dahl and P. G. Wodehouse. There's nothing like a bit of British eccentricity in an oddly esoteric way.