The most useful advice ever given, 'Don't panic', can be found within the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The day aliens decide to demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass is the day when Arthur Dent realises the futility of such advice. The story begins when Arthur, not really your average man-in-the-street, finds that his planet is suddenly destroyed around him, and the great hitch-hike begins...
Young Stalin is a remarkable adventure story about an exceptional, turbulent young man, born in exoticism, raised in the church, fancying himself a poet, then embracing revolutionary idealism and thereby finding his romantic Messianic mission in life.