The HitchHiker's Guide to Galaxy

I have been a Fan of Issac Asimov, ever since I started reading the Foundation novels. From Jan 2006 I started to buy and read his books. Three months back I almost have collected and read most of his novels (which are available in landmark and odyssey). That is where I came across Douglas Adam's "The Ultimate Hitch Hiker's Guide to Galaxy" which was like a collector's edition, all of his six novels in single book. I purchased this book, but almost was never able to read it for almost three months. Yesterday I completed one novel "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to Galaxy".

If there is a full length Science Fiction comedy how would it be? I am sure this novel would come under that. Though a different genre, I enjoyed reading this novel. The story goes like this , before earth is demolished (for building a by pass in galaxy !!) Arthur Dent (a resident of earth) and Ford Perfect (a Galaxy hitchhiker who was stranded in earth for 15 years) gets lift in to a space ship with the help of the cooks in the space ship. Later the space ship commander finds them and expels from the ship in space. They are picked up by another state of the art ship in the Universe "Heart of Gold" with in a span of 29 seconds!!. From they they go to the a planet called Magrathea. The residents of the planet are specialized in making planets. About 10 million years ago they have made a planet called Earth!!. To know the surprise why and what happened next, better read the novel. (If you are ready to miss the humour in the book, you could refer the wikipedia article about this novel to know the surprise)

A Sample Humour From the Novel

it is at times like this , when I am trapped in a Vogon Airlock with a man from Beteleuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish that I should have listened to what my mother told me when I was young.

Why, what did she tell you?

I don't know, I didn't listen then..

The next novel in the book is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I hope I will complete it much sooner.

Our Iceberg is Melting

Though we all have strong and very good reasons to worry about our environment and protect it. This post is not about the environment. Rather this is about a book, which I bought and read last week. This book deals about "Change Management". Unlike some management books which are bulky and difficult to understand, this comes in the form of a story (just like "Who Moved My Cheese" and "The Present". Infact the forward for the book is written by Dr. Spencer Johnson M.D. (who has written the above books). The book is written by Johh Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. (hearing them for the first time). The book deals with a story about penguin colony which is living on a iceberg, one of the penguin discovers that the iceberg is about to melt. What happens next, how the penguins deal with the change management is the rest of the book. Priced at Rs195/- it is a good deal with the quality content, paper and printing. Perhaps the best thought is given by Dr Spencer Johnson himself "... everyone from CEO to highschool students can gain from what they take from this story".

You could check the website http://www.ouricebergismelting.com/ for more information.