It has taken amateur numerological sleuth and genuine Douglas Adams fan Peter Gill over ten years to marshall his evidence, and finally he can reveal the truth. 42 really is the amazingly accurate answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everthing!

For Douglas Adams fans and lovers of QI alike, this is the perfect tongue-in-cheek compendium of remarkable facts. Roaming far and wide – from rock music to Eastern architecture, transatlantic rowing records to Adolf Hitler, cricket to Nijinsky – this is the ultimate collection of esoteric and confounding information.

No stone has been unturned. To get to the very heart of the secret of 42, Gill has scoured the world for information. He has visited Ken Walsh, the author of the famous volume The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, which served as the setting-off point for Adams’s great adventure, and discovered a fascinating new nugget. He has counted, added, multiplied and divided. The 42 hours which it took the Beatles to record Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da pales into insignificance beside his research efforts. Although, unlike Sir Paul McCartney, who waited 42 years after recording that song to actually perform it live, Peter Gill is ready now to share his arcane secrets with the world!

Details

• Published 20th January 2011
• B Format Paperbackj
• £8.99
• 352 pages

• Rights

World