First read shortly after publication, I vaguely remember being disappointed that there was so little Dirk Gently there. Upon rereading, I have the same disappointment.

Contains some nice bits and bobs published elsewhere, from reviews to anecdotes, and 10 chapters of what would likely have coalesced into a third Dirk Gently novel. Like earlier installments, it starts as individual unrelated fragments, unlike those, we never get to see the whole.

I stopped reading this book. I enjoyed the first part, but I think this book is really for people who know and love Douglas Adams and want a little bonus of reading all his book introductions and opinion pieces in one place. I might come back to it after I've read some of his other work.

Very very fascinating but also very very sad. I think some of Adams' best writing is found within this work. Sadly, the publication of this book meant that there would be no more new Douglas Adams books.

The Salmon of Doubt is a hard book to categorize. It contains various items from Douglas Adam's hard drive downloaded after his death, along with some items from other sources, and his half finished novel The Salmon of Doubt. It was compiled and published after his death. The book as a whole is an interesting look into the mind of a man who, although remembered for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is so much more. If you want to truly know all the facets of his mind, this is the book to read. He was not only a great wit, but a concerned environmentalist, and philosopher. Highly recommended for any Douglas Adams fan!

2.5 stars

Since you come into this book expecting Douglas Adams, and what you get is only somewhat Douglas Adams, it was a huge let down. The man's writing is very distinct, and while the little bits that are his are good, the other bits aren't.

It's really hard to rate a text that is a compilation of snippets that was intended to eventually be a book, but that the author never completed.

This reliquary is constructed of some well-not-quite-eulogies of Douglas Adams, and some quotes, snippets and letters that he wrote and some of his magazine articles. The entire first half of the book comes across as a portrait of a man we have come to know through his work, with some semi-biographical pieces such as his time spent in the America walking borrowed dogs, his passion for The Beatles and Procol Harum, his thoughtful journey into Atheism, and that time he dressed up as a Rhino to climb Kilimanjaro. I was fully amused to listen to his wish-lists for future technology, that spookily predict many aspects our modern day mobile cloud-computing world and fibre optic networks, even though they were written in the 90s.

Bumbling into the more Dirk Gently end of the book, I was amused to find myself listening to the voice of Arthur Dent, Simon Jones. Having been brought up on Hitchhiker's Guide (TV and radioplay versions) this seemed quite fitting. I'll admit that knowing this was ostensibly a Dirk Gently book, I should have at first considered... "the interconnectedness of all things". I was caught off guard with a frisson of real honest to goodness goosebumps as random descriptions in the text tied back to other anecdotes, turns of phrase and backstory from Adams's life. Either that or I was just cold... gusty winds may exist.

I'm not sure how this would go down with people who are not fans of the author, but the book is a nice quiet farewell to the man.

Certainly a gem for all Douglas Adams fans, containing a collection of articles, speeches and short stories with a broad topic ranging from such as hiking up Kilimanjaro in a rhino-suit to how computers' keybords will look in the future. If you're familiar with Douglas's writing style, you'll recognise that he uses similar techniques when writing both long novels and short chronicles. The book is an opportunity to not only enjoy the writers ideas one last time, but also to get to know the person behind those ideas better.

The beggining of what was supposed to become a new Dirk-Gently book doesn't dissapoint, and it lures you in to a world of hollistic complexity, only in the way that Douglas Adams can.
My personal opinion is that the book is a casual read. Because it consists of unrelated material, it's easy to get into any page at any time and there's no need to rush the read.

Another sidenote is that the book can be enjoyed by readers who are not familiar with Douglas Adams or his work. It can be a good way of getting to know the author and his writing style, but, of course, the book is most appealing to Douglas Adams fans who appreciate his character and know a thing or two about the guy.

While reading this, I've had one thought running in my head the whole way through: I wish I could've met Douglas Adams.
Whether he's telling about the time he walked around Africa in a rhino suit for charity, teaching Americans how to make a proper cup of tea or giving a speech about the possibility of an artificial God, Adams was able to make almost anything a pleasure to read. A wonderful insight into the mind of a man I'll never get to meet.
I'm only taking off points here because the unfinished version of the third Dirk Gently novel given here didn't quite work, but then again Adams knew that too. Shame we never got to see how this project would have ended up.
So long Douglas Adams, and thanks for all the fish.

It's basically a collection of Adams' writings and articles of interviews, some half-finished Dirk Gently story that goes to Albuqurque (New Mexico) and no further...

It's basically the literary equivalent of ADHD (I should know -- I have ADD).

Nevertheless, one might understand that a great writer and person was lost when he died much too soon at barely 49 years old.

Douglas Adams is so great and I'm so sad he never got to finish this book.
This collection has some really great stuff by him but it also has some that's rather boring. I thought the essays went kinda back and forth, because while I love his writing style, I think its much more appropriate for stories than essay structure. The way he jumps from a topic to an anecdote to a rant makes for an entertaining read but it also loses the focus of an essay sometimes. I thought some of the editing/arrangement of work was questionable but overall it didn't effect the actual content, just the flow/themes in a collection of various kinds of writing.
When it comes down to it Adams is consistently such a special and unique author and his sense of humor is always so spot on.

This technically is the 3rd book in the Dirk Gently series. Sadly, it's not really a Dirk Gently book. You see, before Douglas Adams could write/finish this third book, he died of a sudden heart attack in a gym in Santa Barbara in 2001.

But he left behind fragments of chapters or chapters and their rewritings and a lot of other notes on his various computers. His wife, daughter, agent, editor, assistant and other people then pieced together what is now The Salmon of Doubt which would have been the title of the third book.

This book is divided into three parts:
1) Life
2) The Universe
3) And Everything
which is a tribute to his Hitchhiker book(s).

There is much more in this book than simply another story (or the beginning of one). The first two parts are filled with snippets, random thoughts DA wrote down about tea and cookies and computers and other stuff, interviews for various magazines and newspapers he did, as well as speeches he gave for all sorts of occasions.
For example, did you know how much Douglas Adams got involved with environmentalism? Yes, this giant (literally) of a man did not just love all things Apple, but thanks to a trip done with biologist Mark Carwardine, he also became a staunch defender of bio-diversity. Most notably, he loved and tried to protect rhinos. He even climbed the Kilimandscharo in a rhino costume in order to raise money for "Save the Rhino" (a wildlife conservation organisation). Here he is:

Naturally, it was much more of an ordeal than he had originally thought, which he explains in his very unique hilarious way (seriously, I almost suffocated when reading his account of that trip).

My favourite story though is of the cookies. Here it is:

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person is me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table. I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know… But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought, "What am I going to do?"

In the end I thought "Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it.", and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, "That settled him." But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice…” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.

The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.

Typically British. And, strangely, or not so strangely because it's typical DA, a perfect anecdote about life.

This book, therefore, grants a unique insight into the author's mind, his anxiety that sometimes bordered on depression, his early years and struggle, the sudden fame and success, the maddening battle with Hollywood, his private life even.
And it shows how beloved and respected he was by family, friends and colleagues. I mean, Stephen Fry penned the Foreword and Richard Dawkins the Epilogue! Just the list of people he knew and often also how he got to know them is staggering.

Alas, this is the end. So to speak. Fortunately, I can look forward to reading the 4 other Hitchhiker volumes as I haven't read those yet. It's amazing what kind of a legacy this man left behind (not just through his books, but also radio programmes, BBC contributions, movies, TV shows etc).

Trigger Warning:
This book is sometimes difficult to read; at least to those people who mourn the author, or generally feel for people who have to cope with sudden loss. It sure made me cry at certain points.

I liked the Dirk Gently story and some of the correspondence was as charming as your would expect from Adams. The pop-science and pop-atheism stuff in the middle was a bit boring and unsophisticated to me though.