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Like many people, I was saddened when I heard about Douglas Adams' death last May.

Of course, I had read Hitchhikers many years ago, and had also read his Dirk Gently series. I also had the unique (well, not *truly* unique) privilege of hearing him speak when he did a talk at Microsoft a few years ago.

I recently came across a copy of The Salmon of Doubt, which I would describe as a brain dump of a bunch of useful things that Douglas had on his computers at the time of his death. There are a lot of short articles and essays, and then a few chapters from a never published Dirk Gently book. The articles and essays are varied and interesting, and the chapters, while a bit uneven, are definitely good stuff.

Overall, I liked the book a lot, and found out a lot about Douglas that makes me more convinced that the world has truly lost a unique soul.

One especially poignant part of the book is the order of service for his memorial. If you have Richard Dawkins speaking at your memorial service and David Gilmour performing "Wish You Were Here" (my absolute favorite Floyd song), you're hangin' in the right crowd in my book.