Synopses & Reviews
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!
Review
"Time flies and leaps and zigzags while reading this wickedly funny and clever fantasy. Would-be wordsmiths and mystery fans will find the surreal genre-buster irresistible." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A lively, pun-packed sequel....Fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels should check out Fforde's engagingly skewed comic utopia. As one of his characters predicts: the likely result will be 'paroxysms of litjoy.'" Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Admittedly, this is pretty silly stuff, but somehow just what the doctor ordered now, in a world under the shadow of war, at the tail end of a long, cold winter. (There's publishing genius in bringing out Fforde's books in late February)....I'm not sure whether I've glimpsed it or not, but something tells me the core of Lost in a Good Book resembles whipped cream as sweet and light as the promise of spring." Laura Miller, Salon.com (read the entire Salon review)
Synopsis
If Thursday thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of Jane Eyre, she was sorely mistaken. The unforgettable literary detective whom Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times calls "part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew and part Dirty Harry" had another think coming. The love of her life has been eradicated by Goliath, everyone's favorite corrupt multinational. To rescue him Thursday must retrieve a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of "The Raven." But Poe is off-limits to even the most seasoned literary interloper. Enter a professional: the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations. As her new apprentice, Thursday keeps her motives secret as she learns the ropes of Jurisfiction, where she moonlights as a Prose Resource Operative inside books. As if jumping into the likes of Kafka, Austen, and Beatrix Potter's Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies weren't enough, 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.
The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with Fforde's magnificent new adventure, the second installment in what is sure to become a classic series of literary fantasy.
Synopsis
Literary detective heroine Thursday Next returns in this follow-up to the acclaimed The Eyre Affair. To rescue the love of her life, Thursday must retrieve a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of Poe's "The Raven." Soon, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences.
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 series of Thursday Next novels, which includes
Lost in a Good Book,
The Well of Lost Plots,
Something Rotten,
First Among Sequels,
One of Our Thursdays is Missing, and
The Woman Who Died A Lot. The series has more than one million copies (and counting) in print. He is also the author of
The Big Over Easy and
The Fourth Bear of the Nursery Crime series,
Shades of Grey, and books for young readers, including
The Last Dragonslayer. Visit jasperfforde.com.
Table of Contents
Lost in a Good Book 1.
The Adrian Lush Show 2. The Speical Operations Network
3. Cardenio Unbound
4. Five Coincidences, Seven Irma Cohens and One Confused Neanderthal
5. Vanishing Hitchhikers
4a. Five Coincidences, Seven Irma Cohens and One Confused Thursday Next
6. Family
7. White Horse, Uffington, Picnics, for the Use of
8. Mr. Stiggins and SO-1
9. The More Things Stay the Same
10. A Lack of Differences
11. Granny Next
12. At Home with My Memories
13. Mount Pleasant
14. The Gravitube™
15. Curiouser and Curiouser in Osaka
16. Interview with the Cat
17. Miss Havisham
18. The Trial of Fräulein N
19. Bargain Books
20. Yorrick Kaine
21. Les Artes Modernes de Swindon '85
22. Travels with My Father
23. Fun with Spike
24. Performance-Related Pay, Miles Hawke and Norland Park
25. Roll Call at Jurisfiction
26. Assignment One: Bloophole Filled in Great Expectations
27. Landen and Joffy Again
28. "The Raven"
29. Rescued
30. Cardenio Rebound
31. Dream Topping
32. The End of Life As We Know It
33. The Dawn of Life as We Know It
34. The Well of Lost Plots