This Week: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Douglas Adams

When Arvind Ethan David was a student, he decided to adapt the Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency into a play. Arvind didn’t imagine that Adams would show up to see the play (which he did), nor that Arvind would grow up to become a caretaker of Adams’ legacy. Arvind just released an audiobook called Douglas Adams: The Ends of The Earth, produced by Pushkin Industries. It features unheard archival audio of Douglas Adams and interviews with friends and colleagues of the late author who ponder what Adams was trying to tell us, and whether the great humorist always meant what he said. I talk with Arvind about the origin of the audiobook, and we hear an excerpt on why Adams publicly rejected the label of being a science fiction author -- even though he had created a sci-fi cultural phenomenon with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy.