The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I shouldn’t even have to review this book, it is a literary treasure, one of the best books of all time, but there are still some people out there, youngsters mostly I’d say, that haven’t read it. Frankly, if your kids don’t have a copy, that makes you a bad parent and your kids should be taken away.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one BIG book full of Hitchhiker books. Unless I’m forgetting one, which is possible, you are getting them all for the price of one. So let’s discuss the economics of books for a second.

Here in Australia, it is nothing for a paperback to cost $30 or so. Even accounting for currency valuations, it is still pretty expensive. I think I saw Hitchhiker’s Guide alone for $20ish once. Gack! I can’t do it, as much as I love these books, I can’t spend $20 on a paperback for a book I’ve already read a hundred times. So, that leaves the secondary market: used bookstores.

There are two kinds of used bookstores around here. Those that understand that used books need to be priced to move, and those that don’t. Both are worth checking out but I prefer the cheaper stores because their inventory changes a lot and you never know from week to week what they will have. The other stores have stagnant inventory, blah, don’t really have the patience for that, but I do check them out because from time-to-time you’ll get a bargain.

Anyway, I found my copy for $5 in a junk shop. Snapped it up. Not saying it is junk by any means but hey, I’m on a budget.

The major downside to this, and to using libraries as well, is that the author gets screwed. Here in Australia (the UK too I think, not sure) there is a scheme where authors do in fact make a little when their books are checked out but I’m not sure how it works. I would bet, however, that it is far more profitable to sell a new book than it is to loan an old one out.

So what should we do? Buy what you can then borrow the rest I suppose.

Rich

PS… This book has been very influential in my mostly non-existent writing career. I read it every few years to remind me what the hell I should be doing. *bangs head on desk*