1987 / Ebook / 176 pages / UK****
Misleadingly marketed as some kind of episode guide, later editions (updated by other writers when Neil Gaiman got too big to be a jobbing biographer) would more accurately reframe this as a Douglas Adams biography and career retrospective, from the Footlights and Graham Chapman co-failures through the messy success of Hitchhiker and other curious nuggets. Neil's funny and insightful narration makes for another classic if unusual literary collaboration that's better than it was contractually required to be, but as good as Douglas deserved.
1990 / Ebook / 44 pages / USA
**
Too patronising for graduates but irrelevant for children, I'm not sure who this aspirational independence primer is for, though obviously the last person it's for is someone who's done his travelling and settled down. It gets a point for nice drawings; you can improvise a more interesting story around them to entertain your preschooler.
Collected 1991 / Ebook / 128 pages / USA
***
Most of these aren't particularly odd nor difficult to believe, especially in the age of 'mysterious' YouTube spam channels, and even the ones that are interesting are liable to be dubious and outdated. But don't let that stop you from sharing. Just make sure you begin each amazing anecdote about a realistically tall lighthouse with the phrase "Believe it or not..."
1993 / Ebook / 39 pages / UK
*
This unnecessary supplement fills in the lore (if you really needed to know who Grant of Grant's Claim fame was), but won't be of any practical help for making those few transactions before you get blasted out of the sky (maybe some people got further than I did).
2011-16 (collected 2016) / Ebook / 128 pages / UK
****
Short tales inspired by a nice place he visited, featuring sentient clouds, God and other mythological creatures and jarring sci-fi interruptions.
Fave: 'The Shapes Down There'
