Book Club Discussion Post: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Welcome to our Young at Heart book club! This go round we’ve selected three books that reminded us of childhood in order to hopefully have a bit of lighthearted nostalgia. Each of our three books – Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Claribel Ortega’s Ghost Squad  – have their own Discussion Posts and don’t forget, we’ll be having our first ever Zoom* Book Club on Saturday May 22 at 7 pm EDT.

(*Sign up for the CBR newsletter, Cannon Fodder, to get Zoom connection info. If you have any issues receiving the Zoom details, please contact us.)

For those of you returning or who might be joining in for #CannonBookClub for the first time (hello new friends!) all are welcome, you don’t have to be registered for CBR13. The topics are numbered, and we ask that you refer to them below by that number to help people find the conversations they are looking for. If you are responding to someone else’s thoughts, please try to reply directly to them.

We will also be talking on our Social Media platforms, and of course in our Facebook group, Cannonball Read Book Chat, we’ll have some additional prompts so please join us there as well. Now, on to the questions!

1. Let’s talk expectations: If this was a re-read, did your opinion about the book change? If it was a new read, did your reading experience match what you anticipated?
2. Why should adults read books written for kids?
3. Did you prefer (or would you have preferred) reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a child or an adult?
4. Don’t Panic and always bring a towel have become iconic – what do they mean to you? What towel would you bring?
5. How has this book aged over the last 40 years? How has your perception changed?
6. Who is the real target audience for the story? The humor? 
7. Which medium might suit this story best? It started as a radio drama, then novels, then movies…
8. I have thoughts and feelings that don’t fall within the above topics, grab the nearest potted petunia and meet me in the comments (but beware the whale).