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The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel Hardcover – February 19, 2004

by Jasper Fforde (Author)

141 customer reviews

Book 3 of 7 in the Thursday Next Series

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Exhausted by her hectic stint as Miss Havisham's apprentice at Jurisfiction, Thursday Next, a Special Operative in literary detection, is delighted by a supposed respite in the Character Exchange Program in the Well of Lost Plots, a place filled with linguistic chaos, lousy books, plot devices, grammasites, and a murderer. 60,000 first printing.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this delicious sequel to The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, Fforde's redoubtable (and now throwing-up-pregnant) heroine Thursday Next once again does battle with philistine bibliophobes, taking a furlough from her duties as a SpecOps Literary Detective to vacation in the Well of Lost Plots, the 26 noisome sub-basements of the Great Library. Pursued by her memory-modifying nemesis Aornis Hades, Thursday joins Jurisfiction's Character Exchange Program, filling in for "Mary," sidekick to the world-weary detective hero of Caversham Heights, a hilariously awful police procedural. At the imminent launch of UltraWord, the vaunted "Last Word" in Story Operating Systems, Thursday's friend and mentor Miss Havisham is gruesomely killed, and Thursday gamely sets out to restore order to her underground world, where technophiles ruthlessly recycle unpublished books and sell plot devices and stock characters on the black market. Meanwhile, Aornis is doing her fiendish worst to make Thursday forget Landen, her missing husband and father of her child. If this all sounds a bit confusing, it isuntil the reader gets the hang of Fforde's intricate mix of parody, social satire and sheer gut-busting fantasy. Marvelous creations like syntax-slaughtering grammasites and the murderous Minotaur roam this unusual novel's pages, and Fforde's fictional epigraphs, like his minihistory of "book operating systems," are worth the cover price in themselves. Fforde's sidesplitting sendup of an increasingly antibookish society is a sheer joy.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Fforde's third novel featuring English sleuth Thursday Next is an interesting, enjoyable mix of detective story, fantasy, and literature. Thursday works on cases involving the protection of the stories and characters of famous books, which can be affected and changed by people in the real world. In this installment, she enters the Book World itself. Fforde has a nice touch, never pressing on any one aspect of the story, but managing to interweave all of the elements, with a good deal of humor. The use of various literary characters means that it helps to be familiar with the works in which they appear, but, despite knowing very little about Anna Karenina, it is still very funny to read its plot written as a gossipy telephone conversation between two Russian noblewomen. It also helps to have read the first two books in the series, The Eyre Affair (2002) and Lost in a Good Book(2003, both Viking), but teens will want to read The Well of Lost Plotsanyway.–Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product details

Series: Thursday Next Novels (Viking)
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (February 23, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0670032891
ISBN-13: 978-0670032891
Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.3 x 8.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 141 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,142,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8112 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural
- #24829 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Women Sleuths
- #63497 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

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L. Cooper

funny, tawdry

April 27, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Jasper Fforde continues his well written series about the Literary Detective Thursday Next (literally). This time intrepid detective Next has taken refuge in a poorly written and unpublished crime novel called Caversham Heights from the vengeful Aornis Hades. As usual we get a bit of satire, Shakespeare, Bronte, and a host of other classic novels. While biding her time, the now pregnant detective is drafted into the JurisFiction bureau which polices crime amongst the characters of literature and is mentored by Miss Havisham from Wuthering Height.

In short, this is engross, original, funny, tawdry, interesting, thought provoking,just plain fun. I'm even getting a better understanding of the British and will likely crack open some Bronte in the near future.

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Bobby Matherne

Up Next: Get lost in the frivolity of The Well of Lost Plots

February 10, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The Ffunny man Fforde is back and no dramatic cliché will go unpunished or unused, no plot device will appear, whether in a paper bag or sealed in glass orb, without being used, no one will be left wondering why Godot never showed up or what Miss Havisham did in her spare time, or why there is alphabet soup, but no singular for scampi!
Whenever Thursday is asking how things are going for her, her answer usually sums up her activity quite well. The responses she receives from her summations are usually droll -- witness this exchange with the Cat formerly known as Cheshire, who asks her, "How are you getting along?"

[page 71] "I'm not sure," I replied. "I was attacked by grammasites, threatened by Big Martin's friends and a Thraal. I've got two Generics billeted with me, the characters in Caversham Heights think I can save their book and right now I have to give the Minotaur his breakfast." "Nothing remarkable there. Anything else?"

Thus demonstrated, it leaves me only to say that nothing remarkable happens in this book. Actually most of the remarkable action happens in "Caversham Heights" where Thursday Next is thought to be an Outlander by the characters of the BookWorld. What a surprise they have coming to them when Hollywood makes a movie of them and they become movie stars with the same status as Thursday!

Enough of this frivolity, let's open the book and get lost in the frivolity of The Well of Lost Plots with Thursday. Will she pass her Jurisfiction Agent test and practicum? Will she save the world of reading from being the stage for recycled (Can you say stolen?) ideas for the fun and profit of Text Grand Central and the mega-business which controls the BookWorld?

Just remember this: to BookWorlders, you are an Outlander, and as such you are entitled by your own birthright to outlandish ideas, no matter how mundane you otherwise consider your ideas or lack of them to be. So, buy a copy of this book, beginning reading, and enter the very world which will consider you as Outlandish! Still don't feel outlandish enough to tackle the book, read my frivolous review. Caution: it may change your mind about the propriety or advisability of being outlandish.

After all the entire population of BookWorld already considers you to be outlandish.

The remainder of my review can be found via DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#06c. Bobby Matherne

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D. H. Williams

A Treat for English Majors

May 7, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The intrepid Thursday Next is at it again, this time taking a holiday retreat into bookworld as part of a character exchange with a young policewoman in the never-published book Caversham Heights. I read the first two of Fforde's books and thought it was an interesting concept - a department of Juris Fiction that keeps an eye on plot wanderings and anomalies in books. I didn't really believe that he could go much further with it, but as I was going to be in my car, and the audio book was on the shelf at the library, it seemed worth a shot.

By the time Thursday was fighting off the grammacytes and the misspelling virus, I was laughing out loud and stuck in my car to hear the next/Next chapter in audiobook form. The leather-bound books on the shelf became "feather bound rooks" and, as the floor turned to "flour" around her, she was only saved by the warning of the carrot around her neck as it turned into a "parrot." Oh boy.

Apprenticed to Miss Havisham, Thursday must pass her test to be a full-fledged agent, learn the secret of UltraWord (the new operating system for the book world), help a couple of generics become real characters and lend a sympathetic ear to the nursery rhyme characters who are threatening to go on strike. Fforde creates whole fictional fictional novels with characters trying to better their lot and then he throws in Capt. Nemo, Uriah Heep and a few others that sound familiar.

This is great fun for English majors. Fforde's got words and he not only knows how to use them. He knows how to make them dance.

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R-Squared

My favorite author having fun

December 23, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Jasper Fforde's novels can be found in mystery, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, and literature. Not because he writes so many distinct types, but because each reader and even each bookseller has a different POV on how best to describe Fforde's engaging, witty, action-oriented, layered, multi-layered stories.

"The Well of Lost Plots" (TWoLP) is one of my favorite installments in Fforde's Thursday Next series. The Well is set in the BookWorld, the alternate universe where stories live and fuel our reading experiences. This novel is fun, smart, smarta**, and heartfelt. If you love books and are widely read, you will particularly enjoy the heroine Thursday's interaction with so-called fictional characters. They seem very alive, here.

TWoLP can be read alone, although reading it in order with the other Tuesday Next books certainly adds depth and insight to your journey with Fforde. Jasper Fforde has other series running, including Nursery Crime which spins off most particularly from TWoLP.

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