Lost in a Good Book (A Thursday Next Novel) [Paperback]

Jasper Fforde (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 24, 2004

The second installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England


The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde’s magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside the BookWorld. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe’s “The Raven.” What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. It’s another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment for fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with The Well of Lost Plots. Look for the five other bestselling Thursday Next novels, including One of Our Thursdays is Missing and Jasper Fforde’s latest bestseller, The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com for a ffull window into the Ffordian world!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-In an alternate 1980s England, woolly mammoths migrate through the countryside, Tunbridge Wells has been given to Imperial Russia as Crimean War reparation, and the prevailing culture is based on literature. Due to her adventures in The Eyre Affair (Viking, 2002), newly married Thursday Next has become a media darling, but when an unknown work by Shakespeare surfaces, she is happy to be back to work. However, the megacorporation Goliath hasn't finished bedeviling her: Thursday's husband has been "time-slipped" and exists only in her memory. Further complicating matters, her Uncle Mycroft gives her an entroposcope-a jar of lentils and rice-revealing that the chaos in her life is rapidly escalating. So once again, Thursday jumps into a surreal literary world. This time, she has joined the "Jurisfiction" division and is paired with Charles Dickens's Miss Havesham, who has a penchant for leather jackets and driving recklessly. Absurd and amusing scenes take readers through discussions on theoretical physics, geometry, literature, art, and philosophy. Fforde not only tilts at ideological and insipid corporate windmills and human foibles, but can also make the naming of minor characters hilarious, as in the two unfortunate members of the dangerous SO-5 division, Phodder and Kannon. Reading this novel is like being at a fabulous party of phenomenally funny and wickedly profound guests. Teens will delight in the satire and wit.
Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Thursday Next, who literally jumps into books to do her detective work, must locate a surprise enemy in Poe's "The Raven" to save her beloved. The Eyre Affair, Thursday's first outing, was a surprise best seller.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 399 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142004030
• ISBN-13: 978-0142004036
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (148 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jasper Fforde traded a varied career in the film industry for staring vacantly out of the window and arranging words on a page. He lives and writes in Wales. The Eyre Affair was his first novel in the bestselling Thursday Next series. He is also the author of the Nursery Crime series.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jasper Fforde does it again! April 21, 2003

By Eileen Rieback

Format:Hardcover

In this sequel to The Eyre Affair, intrepid heroine Thursday Next is back for more hilarious romps through time and literary space. She is busier than ever, as she tries to save the world from a horrid (and pink) annihilation, rescue her husband Landen from his recent state of nonexistence, and guard the literary universe from evildoers, all the while evading the all-powerful Goliath Corporation. We follow Thursday into such reading material as Kafka's The Trial, Dickens' Great Expectations, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Poe's The Raven, and a laundry label (yes, a laundry label!). Jasper Fforde, whose humor is reminiscent of Douglas Adams, is in top form here. Literary gags, puns, outlandish situations, plays on words, and irreverent jabs at anything and everything abound in this fanciful story.

I recommend that you read The Eyre Affair first, if you have not done so already, since it will help you understand the quirky flavor of this alternate universe. I also suggest that you take the Spec Ops literary challenge referenced on this latest book's back cover and try your hand at its devilishly difficult puzzles. If I have any critical comment, it is that the story leaves several loose ends, which have me impatiently awaiting Thursday's next adventure, The Well of Lost Plots. But I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Enjoy!

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars charming, fun and clever literary adventure April 6, 2003

By audrey TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Jasper Fforde has done it again, and with a bit more polish, in this engaging sequel to The Eyre Affair, which introduced Thursday Next, LiteraryOps detective in an alternate universe.

Fforde slathers lots of plot with tons o' wordlicious fun as he carries us past the events of Thursday's introductory outing, into her first year of marriage and the aftermath of her defeat of archcriminal Acheron Hades and corporate creep Jack Schitt. The Goliath Corporation eradicates Thursday's husband and pressures her to rescue Schitt while she is dodging murder attempts by an unknown enemy, helping her father try to save the world and taking bookjumping lessons from Great Expectations' Miss Havisham. Oh, and battling the occasional Supreme Evil Being to bring in a few extra bucks. Who says a woman can't have it all?

The author writes dialogue superbly, and introduces new concepts and slang fluidly. There is lots of wordplay, and more than a few puns, but not so much as to be annoying. We see more of Thursday's father here, which is enjoyable, but her husband Landen is not really fleshed out. We are introduced to some terrific new characters, including Granny Next, condemned to live until she can read the ten most boring books ever written, and Miss Havisham, who loves anything with a gnarly engine. The brief cameo by Uncle Mycroft and Aunt Polly, though, is much much too little. Strangely, Thursday's partner Bowden is used to good effect in the first half of the book and then rather unceremoniously dumped, as are the rather fascinating neanderthals. Fforde adds some unique and wonderfully creative concepts this time around, many concerned with the world of literary characters who inhabit a magnificent library containing all the books that ever have been or ever will be written, on 52 (maybe 53!) floors of shelves stretching 200 miles in every direction.The librarian? The Cat formerly known as Cheshire. Jurisfiction, bookjumping and footnoterphones roll off the tongue and into your consciousness effortlessly as Thursday Next proves once again that she is a superb agent -- intelligent, resourceful, diligent and good -- an admirable heroine and a worthy narrator.

Anyway, you should read this book for the lively deconstruction of The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, if nothing else! In keeping with the spirit of things, there is an associated puzzle and contest, and an active web site with BBSs in which the author participates.

Really, it's impossible to convey all the creativity, fun and insight found here, but let me say that while I am a confirmed paperback and used book buyer, I got this as soon as the hardcover was available, and I will do the same with the next instalment, The Well of Lost Plots, due out in the Spring of 2004. Hurrah!

Can't go wrong, writes Sue Pyrb. Highest recommendation.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointing Mess May 17, 2006

By A. Ross HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I picked up the first book in this series (The Eyre Affair) based purely on its premise and was left somewhat underwhelmed. Still, the potential for the series seemed so large that I went ahead and read this second one too, only to be even less enchanted with the franchise. This is a pure sequel, and any newcomers are advised to read the misadventures of Thursday Next is strict order, lest one miss out of allusions to past events. Although... on further consideration, maybe it doesn't matter, since clearly anything can and will happen in this series, and Fforde isn't all that interested in keeping to a linear plotline anyway.

The setting is the same as the first book, an alternate mid-1980s England in which literature is the preeminent social preoccupation. Fresh off the events of "The Eyre Affair", Thursday Next (a police officer specializing in literature related crimes, such as first-edition forgeries, valuable manuscript thefts, and the like) is gritting her teeth through a new round of fame as the woman who saved Jane Eyre (and changed the ending for the better), when all she wants to do is cuddle up at home with her new husband Landen. Unfortunately, the evil Goliath Corporation has managed to use a corrupt member of the Chronogaurd (timestream police) to delete Landen from this timeline and are holding his existence hostage. In the first book Thursday imprisoned one of their top men inside Poe's "The Raven", and it seems they want him back.

This a potentially interesting plot, but it keeps get lost amidst all the other things Fforde throws into the mix. Most notable are a series of strange coincidences which keep coming close to killing Thursday (and are also linked to events in the first book). Another plotline concerns the discovery of a "lost" Shakespeare play, which looks to be the most important literary event of the century, if Thursday can authenticate it. There's also the small matter of Thursday's pregnancy. And just when one is comfortable with Thursday's role as a "SpecOps Litratech", and that whole milieu, she's thrown into an entirely new one as a member of "Jurisfiction", a kind of police comprised of book characters who move around in different literary works and maintain order... Finally, her father pops up to inform her that something in the timestream has gone wrong and the entire world is going to be turned into a mass of pink sludge in a few days unless he can figure it out, and can she help him. Phew!

I've probably missed one or two elements, but you get the idea. Fforde is just brimming with nifty ideas, but the shame of it is that he can't stop and give any of them the attention they deserve. It's impossible to get invested in any of the plotlines when you know he's just going to move on to something else in a few pages, and it's impossible to care about the characters when their existence is utterly malleable, as is time and place. I suppose it's all meant to be puckish good fun, but the overall effect is more an attention deficit disorder Nancy Drew heroine meets a poor-man's Douglas Adams. The book has its occasional moments, but the humor is far too broad and unsubtle, and there's absolutely no narrative tension. All the literary in jokes in the world can't save this shambling wreck, and I don't think I'll be moving on to the next book.