Product Description

It all started when Douglas Adams demolished planet Earth in order to make way for an intergalactic expressway–and then invited everyone to thumb a ride on a comical cosmic road trip with the likes of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the other daft denizens of deep space immortalized in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams made the universe a much funnier place to inhabit and forever changed the way we think about towels, extraterrestrial poetry, and especially the number 42. And then, too soon, he was gone.

Just who was this impossibly tall Englishman who wedded science fiction and absurdist humor to create the multimillion-selling five-book “trilogy” that became a cult phenomenon read round the world? Even if you’ve dined in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, you’ve been exposed to only a portion of the offbeat, endearing, and irresistible Adams mystique. Have you met the only official unofficial member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus? The very first person to purchase a Macintosh computer? The first (and thus far only) author to play a guitar solo onstage with Pink Floyd? Adams was also the writer so notorious for missing deadlines that he had to be held captive in a hotel room under the watchful eye of his editor; the creator of the epic computer game Starship Titanic; and a globetrotting wildlife crusader.

A longtime friend of the author, Nick Webb reveals many quirks and contradictions: Adams as the high-tech-gadget junkie and lavish gift giver . . .irrepressible ham and painfully timid soul . . . gregarious conversationalist and brooding depressive . . . brilliant intellect and prickly egotist. Into the brief span of forty-nine years, Douglas Adams exuberantly crammed more lives than the most resilient cat–while still finding time and energy to pursue whatever side projects captivated his ever-inquisitive mind.

By turns touching, tongue-in-cheek, and not at all timid about telling the warts-and-all truth, Wish You Were Here is summation as celebration– a look back at a life well worth the vicarious reliving, and studded with anecdote, droll comic incident, and heartfelt insight as its subject’s own unforgettable tales of cosmic wanderlust. For the countless fans of Douglas Adams and his unique and winsome world, here is a wonderful postcard: to be read, reread, and treasured for the memories it bears.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #966303 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-29
• Released on: 2005-03-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Webb was the editor at Britain's Pan Books who bought the book rights to Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1978, back when it was a hit radio show on the BBC. While Webb didn't have much to do with Adams professionally after that, the two remained friendly until Adams's death, at age 49, in 2001, and that closeness pervades this authorized biography and its conversational tone. That doesn't mean the story is sugarcoated; Adams is occasionally chided for his emotional thickness, and Webb deals frankly with the consequences of his chronic slowness as a writer (one Hitchhiker novel was produced only when his editor, Sonny Mehta, booked a hotel room and sat with him as he turned out the pages). Another section addresses the thorny issue of who contributed what to the zany plot line of the radio series and how Adams's collaborator, John Lloyd, was nudged out of the book deal. For the most part, however, Webb genially celebrates Adams's comic talent and zest for life, aiming his account squarely at the large Hitchhiker fan base with occasional overtures to readers who don't necessarily know every nuance of the trilogy. It might be overstating matters to suggest that "before Douglas nobody had been cosmically funny," but Webb's tribute makes it easy to see why those who knew Adams admired him so greatly.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Untimely death deprived sf of its reigning comic genius, Douglas Adams (1952-2001), celebrated as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) and its three sequels. After proving its popularity as a 1978 BBC radio series, the Guide became a novel thanks to a commission from Pan Books editor Nick Webb, who now gives us what is easily the best of several existing Adams biographies. Drawing on a wealth of Adams' papers and authorized interviews with family members, Webb creates a multifaceted rendering of a complex, charismatic man who was less writer than idea-spinner with a passionate interest in science. Eschewing strict chronology, Webb steps back and forth among seminal moments in Adams' life, from his days at the BBC, rubbing elbows with Monty Python cast members, to his final years in California, pitching the Guide to Hollywood. A fascinating, witty portrait of a cultural icon who deserves an audience even larger than the present horde of his buffs. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for Wish You Were Here

“Webb’s tale brims with affection and humour; every page is a delight.”
–The Daily Mail

“It’s perhaps the ultimate credit to Webb that he can be just as funny as Adams in his writing. With many of the same veins of humour that Adams had running throughout this biography, it’s as if the great hitchhiker has never really left.”
–The Leeds Guide


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Wish you were still here
I have read every book published under Douglas Adams' name. I read WISH YOU WERE HERE because Douglas Adams (DNA) is one of my favorite authors and I feel that his death is a tremendous loss to the art of the written word. But unlike most his devoted readers, my favorite DNA novel is THE LONG DARK TEA TIME OF THE SOUL. I have read it more times than I can count. Why?

During my life as student, I was compelled to study systems theory. The systems theory developers have a very long tradition of being terrible writers - making systems theory much more complex than it should be. I struggled though reading Parsons, Pinus and Minihan - among many others. When I became a college professor, I did my best to clarify systems theory to my students. It was at that time; I read THE LONG DARK TEA TIME OF THE SOUL and learned that Dirk Gently employs an ecological systems model in his search for the truth. I had an epiphany. My mind became clear and I was able to explain systems theory in a coherent manner. DNAs' language and application of this theoretical framework enabled me to become a more effective professor. In the early days of email (circa 1987-89), I emailed DNA to explain how I was employing his novel in the classroom. I was absolutely shocked. He replied to me and wanted more information. His email was a real thrill!

Webb does a excellent job of drawing a picture of the creator of Dirk Gently, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox (among others). I enjoyed and was quite surprised to learn about Adams' approach to writing. As a reader, his writing appears to be an effortless joy, but he struggled to write. The effect of his father on his writing and lifestyle was both intriguing and insightful. The reader will immediately recognize the admiration that Webb has for Adams and become acutely aware of the pain the author feels with Adams' departure. I deeply miss him also.

Lastly, I fear that the publisher is doing a very poor job of marketing it. I only learned about WISH YOU WERE HERE because it was given to me as a gift. I hope that Amazon will use their data base to let SF readers know about this fine biography.

Worth hitching a ride
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun"; there on a inconsequential rock revolving around this insignificant star, Douglas Adams used humor to place the importance of earthlings in the Einstein Universe. Nick Webb in turn provides insight into the life of Mr. Adams, the brain behind such classic tales as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; don't panic there is still time if you ignore your digital watch to read the amusing novel and its wacky sequels or catch the TV series. The well-written biography is parts irreverent (Mr. Adams must have provided divine guidance for that inclusion) and parts insightful especially on his subject's prim and proper British education and during the artistic period of starvation, overwork, and fame. Though obviously targeting Ford Prefect fans, Nick Webb does a masterful job giving insight into Adams during the time he wrote the Hitchhiker-Python-Who scripts in the late 1970s.

Harriet Klausner

...
It's such a shame that Douglas Adams left this world before his time. Perhaps he would have decided that an autobiography on his life would be a good idea. Because while, without one, we can get by on books like "Wish You Were Here" by Nick Webb, nothing quite replaces Adams' own voice.

Webb writes the biography as well as can be under the circumstances. He has obviously gone to a lot of work interviewing and getting information from the people Adams worked with, was friends with, and knew growing up.

Read "Last Chance To See" first, for a first hand account of some of Adams' adventures (plus, it may just be his best book!)... then pick this up to read. The breadth of the information is astonishing.