Product Description

The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with 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 books. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14879 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-24
• Released on: 2004-02-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 399 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780142004036
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

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.

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.

Review
"Enchanting . . . a tale to savor. Harry Potter fans outgrowing Hogwarts should dive in." -- People

"Richly crammed with jokes, ideas and action. Brainier silliness is hard to find." -- Entertainment Weekly

Customer Reviews

Jasper Fforde does it again!
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!

charming, fun and clever literary adventure
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.

Sounds strange?. Stranger things will happen !!!
After reading "The Eyre Affair", the first book in Fforde?s "Thursday Next" series, I was delighted. I loved the characters, the premise of a different world where literature was such an encompassing passion, and the possibility some of the characters had of "jumping into" books, thus being able to interact with many personages from literature.

"The Eyre Affair" was witty, funny, easy to read, and enthralling: I could not have liked it more... But, as a result, I was somewhat afraid of reading its sequel, "Lost in a good book". I asked myself how on earth could Fforde write another book as good as the first one. I really couldn?t imagine an answer, but thankfully my curiosity was stronger that my fear of finding the sequel not good enough.

"Lost in a good book" brings the same characters, but new situations, and developments that make the story richer. Spec-Ops 27 Thursday Next is now a celebrity, and she must deal with that, something that is quite difficult for her. As if that were not enough, the Goliath Corporation blackmails her into bringing back Mr. Schitt (trapped by Thursday in one of Poe?s poems in "The Eyre Affair"). As she is indifferent to the Corporation?s threats, and to the money it offers her, they eradicate her husband (at the age of two years) with the help of a corrupt Chronoguard, promising to bring him back once Schitt is returned. But how will Thursday do that, without the Prose Portal that previously helped her to jump into books?.

Thursday has more than enough problems in the "real world", but she discovers quite soon that that is not all. She is accused by Jurisfiction of a "fiction infraction", due to the fact that she accidentally changed the end of "Jane Eyre". Jurisfiction, as the fictional lawyer assigned to her explains, is the service ran "inside novels to maintain the integrity of popular fiction". Consequently, she will be prosecuted in Kafka?s "The Trial". Sounds strange?. Stranger things will happen when Next becomes an apprentice to Miss Havisham (from "Great Expectations"), in order to become one of Jurisfiction?s agents.

This review is already too long, and I haven?t mentioned the difficulties surrounding the authentication of "Cardenio" (one of Shakespeare?s lost plays), the visits to other books (for example Austen?s "Sense and sensibility"), Pickwick?s egg (her pet Dodo is a "she") or the fact that somebody is trying to kill Thursday through coincidences... Did I pointed out that Fforde goes on introducing literary devices that make the reader laugh?. I guess I will have to leave that, and many things more, for you to discover :)

On the whole, I can say that even if "Lost in a good book" is similar to "The Eyre Affair" in some aspects (characters, main premises), it continues to develop Fforde?s world, and doesn?t merely repeat the things that were already said in the first book. In my opinion, in this book we get to know more about Thursday and the people that surrounds her, but we also realize that there is much more to the fictional world that we had supposed. As a matter of fact, the "fictional" world and the "real" world are intrinsically connected, and Next is one of the links.

What can I say?. Read this book as soon as you can. You won?t regret it, and you are likely to do the same thing that I am doing right now. That is to say, you will wait anxiously for the next book in the series, and in the meanwhile you will recommend "The Eyre Affair" and "Lost in a good book" to others, so that they will know what they were missing without being aware of it :)

Belen Alcat