I first met the Hitchhiker's Guide through the double album version of the first three books produced by the BBC. I later heard the original BBC radio series (more than once, I think) and read the first three books myself.

On this re-reading some decades later, I was surprised to find that I still knew the first two books almost line for line. Although they may well be the best of the series, they'd lost any freshness for me. What also surprised me was how much I enjoyed the final two books, neither of which I'd previously read. Although their plots and character development were uneven, the narratives still took me somewhere I was interested in going.