If all this thinking about the brain makes your brain hurt, relaxation is at hand with this rather admirably pointless compendium of instances of the number 42. That was what the computer Deep Thought (presumably after consulting all its modules) announced was the answer to life, the universe and everything in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We learn here that 42C is a normal body temperature for a chickenA" (a not-yet-roasted chicken, I take it), the length in days of Roman Polanski's imprisonment for psychiatric evaluation, the diameter in inches of the world's deepest hole and the equivalent, in millions of sticks of dynamite, of the energy contained in one gram of matter. An author who offers extracts from two of my favourite Wikipedia pagesA" is not making any great claims to literary or conceptual merit, but the book does offer a touching tribute to and mini-biography of Douglas Adams himself, and is overall a friendly, semi-satirical celebration of human pattern-seeking. Can it really be a coincidence that exactly 42 cups of coffee have elapsed since I first saw this book?A" - The Guardian
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