Hitchhiker 39;s Guide To The Galaxy Audiobook Read By Douglas Adams
Griselda Humbarger
Biography
Born in Cambridge in 1952, Douglas Adams is the beloved creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and its various incarnations as audio books, audio programs, and radio plays. Hitchhiker's phenomenal, award-winning success led to a series of sequels, most of which having been adapted successfully into other mediums in their own right. Known for his incisive wit, and a particularly absurdist sense of humor, Adams has culled a massive audience of devoted followers over the years. Unfortunately Adams passed away in 2001, but his fanbase and their devotion has only grown since then, and shows no sign of ending anytime soon. LearnOutLoud.com is happy to present Adam's work on audio (most of which is read by the author) with the hope that you will find the same joy that millions of people have derived from Adams' work over the last 25 years. So come aboard, have some fun and always remember: Don't Panic!We Recommend
When it comes to Douglas Adam's work, the only place to begin is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy unabridged audio book narrated by Douglas Adams himself. This best-seller endeavors to explain why the universe is a lot safer if you bring a towel. This is the only reliable, somewhat accurate reference guide to the universe. You then might want to continue your ride through the galaxy with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe also read by Douglas Adams, which follows hapless Earth man and Hitchhiker hero Arthur Dent as he searches for a nice cup of tea. However, the restaurant in question offers much more than food and drink. With this audiobook you'll find that eating is in some ways the key to understanding every galactic civilization in history. Finally there's the posthumous book The Salmon Of Doubt, Adams' last book before his untimely death. Rescued from his beloved Macintosh, this audio book allows us the opportunity to linger and frolic one last time in the mind of Douglas Adams. Simon Jones and a cast of talented voice actors bring this final tale to life and do their good friend proud with a hilarious selection of novellas, essays, and laugh-out-loud short pieces. Whether you are a newbie to Hitchhiker lore or an old hand at navigating the byways of the universe, LearnOutLoud.com has everything Douglas Adams has to say on the subject.
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 15 years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Immerse yourself into the mind of Douglas Adams. The author The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy graced the world with one final appearance just days before his tragic death from a heart attack on May 11, 2001.
Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a craving for tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability, and desperately in search of a place to eat.
There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.
This audio dramatization of last installment of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" features a brand-new, full-cast dramatization of "Mostly Harmless," the final book in Adams famous "trilogy in five parts."
Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[a][b] is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was later adapted to other formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text adventure game, and 2005 feature film.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an international multimedia phenomenon; the novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005.[4][5] The first novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), has been ranked fourth on the BBC's The Big Read poll.[6] The sixth novel, And Another Thing..., was written by Eoin Colfer with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams. In 2017, BBC Radio 4 announced a 40th-anniversary celebration with Dirk Maggs, one of the original producers, in charge.[7] The first of six new episodes was broadcast on 8 March 2018.[8]
In their travels, Arthur comes to learn that the Earth was actually a giant supercomputer, created by another supercomputer, Deep Thought. Deep Thought had been built by its creators to give the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", which, after eons of calculations, was given simply as "42". Deep Thought was then instructed to design the Earth supercomputer to determine what the Question actually is. The Earth was subsequently destroyed by the Vogons moments before its calculations were completed, and Arthur becomes the target of the descendants of the Deep Thought creators, believing his mind must hold the Question. With his friends' help, Arthur escapes and they decide to have lunch at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, before embarking on further adventures.
The original, first radio series comes from a proposal called "The Ends of the Earth": six self-contained episodes, all ending with Earth being destroyed in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realised that he needed someone on the planet who was an alien to provide some context, and that this alien needed a reason to be there. Adams finally settled on making the alien a roving researcher for a "wholly remarkable book" named The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As the first radio episode's writing progressed, the Guide became the centre of his story, and he decided to focus the series on it, with the destruction of Earth being the only hold-over.[13]
Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe book: while lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck with a copy of the book and looking up at the stars, he thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well. However, he later claimed that he had forgotten the incident itself, and only knew of it because he'd told the story of it so many times. His friends are quoted as saying that Adams mentioned the idea of "hitch-hiking around the galaxy" to them while on holiday in Greece in 1973.[14]
Adams's fictional Guide is an electronic guidebook to the entire universe, originally published by Megadodo Publications, one of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor Beta. The narrative of the various versions of the story is frequently punctuated with excerpts from the Guide. The voice of the Guide (Peter Jones in the first two radio series and TV versions, later William Franklyn in the third, fourth and fifth radio series, and Stephen Fry in the movie version), also provides general narration.
The first radio series of six episodes (called "Fits" after the names of the sections of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "The Hunting of the Snark")[15] was broadcast in 1978 on BBC Radio 4. Despite a low-key launch of the series (the first episode was broadcast at 10:30 pm on Wednesday, 8 March 1978), it received generally good reviews and a tremendous audience reaction for radio.[16] A one-off episode (a "Christmas special") was broadcast later in the year. The BBC had a practice at the time of commissioning "Christmas Special" episodes for popular radio series, and while an early draft of this episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide had a Christmas-related plotline, it was decided to be "in slightly poor taste" and the episode as transmitted served as a bridge between the two series.[17] This episode was released as part of the second radio series and, later, The Secondary Phase on cassettes and CDs. The Primary and Secondary Phases were aired, in a slightly edited version, in the United States on NPR Playhouse.
The first series was repeated twice in 1978 alone and many more times in the next few years. This led to an LP re-recording, produced independently of the BBC for sale, and a further adaptation of the series as a book. A second radio series, which consisted of a further five episodes, and bringing the total number of episodes to 12, was broadcast in 1980.
The radio series (and the LP and TV versions) were narrated by comedy actor Peter Jones as The Book. Jones was cast after a three-month-long casting search and after at least three actors (including Michael Palin) turning down the role.[18]
The theme tune used for the radio, television, LP, and film versions is "Journey of the Sorcerer", an instrumental piece composed by Bernie Leadon and recorded by the Eagles on their 1975 album One of These Nights. Only the transmitted radio series used the original recording; a sound-alike cover by Tim Souster was used for the LP and TV series, another arrangement by Joby Talbot was used for the 2005 film, and still another arrangement, this time by Philip Pope, was recorded to be released with the CDs of the last three radio series. Apparently, Adams chose this song for its futuristic-sounding nature, but also for the fact that it had a banjo in it, which, as Geoffrey Perkins recalls, Adams said would give an "on the road, hitch-hiking feel" to it.[20]
The twelve episodes were released (in a slightly edited form, removing the Pink Floyd music and two other tunes "hummed" by Marvin when the team land on Magrathea) on CD and cassette in 1988, becoming the first CD release in the BBC Radio Collection. They were re-released in 1992, and at this time Adams suggested that they could retitle Fits the First to Sixth as "The Primary Phase" and Fits the Seventh to Twelfth as "The Secondary Phase" instead of just "the first series" and "the second series".[21] It was at about this time that a "Tertiary Phase" was first discussed with Dirk Maggs, adapting Life, the Universe and Everything, but this series would not be recorded for another ten years.[22]
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