The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Douglas Adams, 1980
Science fiction Graphic novels & humourFantasyContemporary fiction
The universe is ending, the food is excellent, and the only sane response is a joke — Adams's second Hitchhiker's novel.
Feels like wonder and melancholy. About power.
A page from the book
What a race with fifty arms and one terror decides to invent first.
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. Douglas Adams.Adams said the idea arrived while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, holding a Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe and thinking someone should write one for the galaxy.
Books that feel like this
More by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams, 1979
The Earth is demolished for a bypass, and a man in his dressing gown must hitch across a galaxy run on bad bureaucracy and good towels.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams, 1979
A hapless Englishman is swept off a doomed planet by an alien researcher, armed only with a towel and a very unreliable guide.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe like?
- Feels like wonder and melancholy. About power.
- What should I read after The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?
- If you liked The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, try The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie), Good Omens (Terry Pratchett) and A Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin).
A taste of the feed
What poverty actually teaches, from someone who sat through the lesson.
Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian · Sherman Alexie
A demon's professional failing is liking the people he's meant to ruin.
He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.
Good Omens · Terry Pratchett
What it costs to be the cleverest man in a room that pities you.
You are your mother’s trueborn son of Lannister." "Am I?" the dwarf replied, sardonic. "Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he’s never been sure." "I don’t even know who my mother was," Jon said. "Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are." He favored Jon with a rueful grin. "Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs." And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.
A Game of Thrones · George R.R. Martin
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