Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams by Nick Webb

While this biography is tedious to read, it is clear that the subject matter is worth the effort. Douglas Adams was a unique talent. He was a technophile, incredibly creative, and full of life. Yet, he was also difficult to live with, egocentric, and a perfectionist. Mostly, he was gone too soon.

“He loved philosophical ideas, and had a natural grasp of them, but he knew that plonking them unadorned into the text would induce instant tedium followed by the heterodyne squeal of a million radios being retuned…Douglas’s genius was to sneak them into the reader’s brain camouflaged as a series of extremely good jokes. It is this serious underpinning of dazzling notions and intellect that made Hitchhiker’s so extraordinary.”

Author Nick Webb brings Adams to life while seemingly trying to emulate Adams’ irreverent writing style. But Douglas Adams he is not and the book ends up being too long and meandering with only flashes of Adamsesque flair. Still, I enjoyed learning more about the author that brought us the answer to life, the universe, and everything.