I love the sea. I love the smell of salt on the air, the beautiful language of the waves, the feeling of sand under my bare feet. I love that the sea is always there but never the same: one day still and calm, the waves just whispering on the shore, and the following day full of huge, foam-filled crashes and playful winds.

When I go to the beach I am usually too busy to relax: chasing my son as he runs laughing through the waves which lick the shoreline, building sandcastles, taking a swim, or, if the visibility is good, checking out all the creatures who live under the water using goggles or a snorkel mask.

But if I am feeling lazy, or if my son happens to have fallen asleep, it’s also nice to lie in the shade of a palm tree and read a good book. When you are on the beach, perhaps you do not want a story which is too heavy or distressing. I prefer a humorous read, and the best example of humorous writing which I know of is Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

Adams first wrote the series as a radio play in 1978, and later adapted the scripts to create a ‘trilogy of five novels’. This description of the series can give you some indication of the surreal humour which the books are full of (the word ‘trilogy’ means a series of three books, not five).

The series follow the adventures of Arthur Dent, a simple man who is just looking for a quiet life, a cup of tea and a sandwich. Unfortunately right at the beginning of the first book, his house is destroyed by a bulldozer in order to make way for a new motorway bypass. Arthur would have been very upset about this, but a few minutes later his entire planet is destroyed in order to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Arthur is saved by his old friend Ford Prefect, who ‘turned out to be from a small star somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and not from Guildford as he usually claimed, and more importantly, knew how to hitch a ride on a spaceship’.

Arthur’s home planet is place called Earth, which is described thus:

Suddenly, Arthur has to deal with the knowledge that there is a whole universe of things about which he had no previous idea, and that there is no going back to his home, since it is gone. The series follows his inept and sometimes beautiful adventures around the galaxy, in a gripping, hilarious and deeply moving ‘hero’s journey’.

Arthur Dent is a kind of quintessentially English man. He does not want to make a fuss, he is always looking for a cup of tea, and takes sandwich-making to a high art form. As such, reading this series can help to give you a great insight into the typical British character.

If you are interested in learning more about The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you want to try reading the books with me, or you would like to know more about British literature, please book a class with me.