The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a great read.  There was a lot of irony, British humor, and intelligent comedy that intertwined to create a really enjoyable story.
  An obvious example of things that mirror the real world and a created one is actually in the book itself.  In the beginning of the story the main character, Arthur Dent, is trying to save his house from being torn down by a bulldozer that's trying to make way for a highway. In the end his whole planet is destroyed by Vogons (aliens) to make room for a intergalactic bypass. This is one of a seemingly endless number of parallels between the life on earth and the workings of the galaxy.
  Things from our real world that the book depicts is mankind's constant fixation on advancement of technology.  It's human nature to want to know all the answers, and we as a race are always trying to invent things in order to help us gain more knowledge about our surroundings, and about each other.  In the book, they built the greatest computer of all time.  They asked the computer what the meaning of life is, and after a long time of contemplation and calculation, the computer finally gave the long-awaited answer: 42.  This says a lot about how humans are constantly trying to find meaning in things, and can be so focused on the meaning that they lose sight of things that actually matter.  This goes to show that even if technology advances to the point that it no longer can, it still may not have all the answers to life.

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