Let’s not forget that 25 May is internationally celebrated as Towel Day. (Note: I have sort of combined Earth Day with Towel Day and have been waving a towel made from renewable bamboo fibers … it’s great for after-shower daubing too.)
Here’s a piece from Gregory Cowles that showed up in the New York Times Book Review:
DON’T PANIC: When Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” died of a heart attack 11 years ago this month, a group of fans organized an impromptu “Towel Day” celebration in his memory. Why Towel Day? Because a towel, as readers of Adams’s delirious novel will remember, “is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.” (Suggested uses: beach-lounging on Santraginus V, sailing a miniraft down the River Moth, hiding from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and, “if it still seems to be clean enough,” drying yourself off.) The tribute caught on, and this year people in at least 15 countries will observe May 25 by carrying towels to readings, movie screenings and other events related to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” which spent a cumulative 11 weeks on our paperback list. In 1981, when the first American edition was released, Gerald Jonas praised it in the Book Review. “Humorous science-fiction novels have notoriously limited audiences,” he wrote. “They tend to be full of ‘in’ jokes understandable only to those who read everything from Jules Verne to Harlan Ellison. The ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ is a delightful exception.” And yes, he mentioned the towels.
You haven’t read the complete Hitchhiker’s Guide? Is that possible? Just in case you are supremely embarrassed and running out right now to the local bookstore, here are the books in the series:
The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
- Life, the Universe and Everything
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
- Mostly Harmless
You can find all of these entertaining novels (and one or two related stories) available in a satisfying single-volume collection from most competent booksellers. Git it!
A Celebration of Reading 