The best comedy doesn't just make you giggle. It undermines any unstated assumptions you may have about language, society and the universe, forcing you to scrutinize ideas and rethink biases, which in turn makes you giggle. Read just as well cover-to-cover as it is randomly, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is not about the plot--Earth is climactically destroyed in chapter 3--but the ways Douglas Adams manipulates language and logic in absurd yet oddly profound ways. Originally a radio play before it was a "trilogy" of five books, then a television series, movie, and radio play again, the Hitchhiker's series still makes people laugh and think a full decade after Adams' death.