This is an interesting one that slipped past my radar, until a friend pointed it out to me last week. A new book from Palgrave Macmillan, Philosophy and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, edited by Nicholas Joll.
It does exactly what it says in the title, providing an exploration of the philosophy underlying Douglas Adams’ iconic series. It’s written in a well-balanced intelligent and entertaining way: not too heavy, but also not too glib or superficial. There’s no reason why philosophy books should be dull, of course; and equally, there’s no reason why books on popular culture should be glib. Hell, there’s no reason why any books should be dull or glib. And thankfully, this is not a dull and/or glib book.
So there we are: fun and intelligent and not at all dull. What more could you want? Unless you were looking for something dumb and dull, of course.
Available from:
September 9th, 2012 at 9:47 am
This is just to say that the book got an enthusiastic, if short, review in the Guardian yesterday. That review is available here, too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/04/philosophy-hitchhikers-guide-nicholas-joll-review?newsfeed=true
September 18th, 2012 at 9:45 am
And (at the risk of really banging on) I am interviewed on the radio about the book here: https://www.box.com/HitchhikerPodcast