Lost in a Good Book Thursday Next Book 2

Very enjoyable, though a little indistinct from the Jane Eyre affair, I think it stands as part of the series but not so much on its own.

This is the second Thursday Next book I've read, and the second in the series. Somehow I've managed to read them in order. I love Jasper Fforde's style of writing, especially the Nursery Crime books, and although I am a massive literary fan, I don't love the Thursday Next series as much. Fforde is a genius author. He creates whole worlds for his book, and reading the little sections at the beginning of each chapter are brilliant and fascinating. Reading how he imagines certain characters to be, such as Miss Haversham, when their not in their own books is very clever and I enjoy his wild imagination. However, there are certain things that disappointed me. For a start, I like the story to be resolved in one book. If the author is planning a series, there should at least be a story per book, because I left this book wishing there was more to read. That there was some sense of closure. Secondly, I wish there was a new adversary for Thursday. It seems like I'm rereading old stuff, and I want something new, something fresh, even if it leading up eventually to the bigger picture. I'll keep reading these books, as they're always a joy, and always make me smile, but I want more!

Actual rating: 4.5 stars. ➽ And the moral of this rerereread is: I want to work at Jurisfiction when I grow up. Because Miss Havisham (aka the newest addition to the Fast and Furious cast) + the Red Queen + the Cheshire Cat + Prose Resource Operatives + Sense and Sensibility Confusion and Conviviality + PageRunners + preposterous stuff vs. Kafkaesque stuff + the Character Exchange Program + the vertebrate uberclassics not translating well into Arthropod (view spoiler)[😍🍤🦀🦐😍 (hide spoiler)] + ISBN Positioning System + Footnoterphones + Heathcliff Protection Duty + the lobster market and the crustacean readership (view spoiler)[😍🍤🦀🦐😍 (hide spoiler)] + grammasites and adjectivores and verminators, oh my + uh-oh, I think we've been boojummed = ➽ And the other moral of this rerereread is: rice and lentils, never leave home without them. Because you never know when an entroposcope will come in handy. Oh, and also: Phodder and Kannon + thou shalt not spank the mammoth (no indeed, thou shalt not) + Gerhard Von Squid (view spoiler)[😍🐙🐙😍 (hide spoiler)] + chain-smoking dodos + the Brotherhood of Unconstrained Verbosity + Mr Perkup + Shakespeare using ballpoint pens (or not) + the Cheese Squad + Eradications Anonymous + Pontefract Cakes (YUM) + Lamb and Slaughter + isolated high coincidental localised entropic field decreasement (don't ask) + strawberry-flavoured pudding mix (I told you not to ask) = 👋 To be continued and stuff. · Book 1: The Eyre Affair ★★★★★ · Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★ · Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★ · Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★ · Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★ · Book 7: The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★ · Book 8: Dark Reading Matter - to be published [June 2013] I read Lost in a Good Book when it was first published but decided to read the whole series again before burying myself in its last instalment, The Woman Who Died a Lot. I was a bit disappointed after reading The Eyre Affair the second time around (it wasn't as enjoyable as I remembered it) so I wasn't sure what to expect from Lost in a Good Book. Still, I shouldn't have worried as this is such a great read! The book is packed with wild, hilarious ideas : Thursday Next becomes an apprentice to Miss Havisham (from "Great Expectations" and incidentally a mad driver) in order to become a Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative (agents whose job is to maintain the integrity of popular fiction), she is prosecuted in Kafka's "The Trial", someone tries to kill her through coincidences, there are grammasites that live inside books and feed on grammar, a Character Exchange Programme so that characters can vacation in a book other than the one they belong to, the Cheshire Cat is the librarian for The Great Library... These are only a few of the great ideas that make this book a fantastic read! Now on to read The Well of Lost Plots again :) [November 2005] Fforde has done it again! As in the Eyre Affair, the book is packed with literary references and wild, hilarious ideas : Thursday Next becomes an apprentice to Miss Havisham (from "Great Expectations" and incidentally a mad driver) in order to become a Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative (agents whose job is to maintain the integrity of popular fiction), she is prosecuted in Kafka's "The Trial", someone tries to kill her through coincidences, there are grammasites that live inside books and feed on grammar, a Character Exchange Programme so that characters can vacation in a book other than the one they belong to, the Cheshire Cat is the librarian for The Great Library... This book is absolutely brilliant, I can't wait to read "The Well of Lost Plots!"

The second instalment of the Thursday Next series smashes the boundaries between reality and fiction, plays with time and manipulates coincidence to drive the narrative. A meta mind twist, the story is so cleverly crafted I find myself backtracking to unbend and better understand what I’m reading. From footnote conversations to a speed-racing Miss Haversham and too many coincidences to be a coincidence, Lost in a Good Book, is a literary delight. Like the series, it helps to have a good grounding of the classics as you read or you’ll find yourself amused but baffled by the Trial or missing momentous literary discoveries. However, it’s still an energetic, enthralling and engrossing read that I would recommend to anyone.

** spoiler alert ** The second outing of Thursday Next is also quite fun and entertaining in a very crazy way. There are so many new things that we get to know about her world which are fantastical and make for a fascinating read. The plot here is thin and even though Thursday saves the world from Armageddon, it doesn’t feel that way. Its so difficult to keep track of all the wonders of this world but below are a few tidbits which will keep the reader wanting more. Thursday attends a court hearing inside Kafka’s The Trial where the case is about her changing the ending of Jane Eyre. This is handled by Jurisfiction, the group of characters from various books who handle crimes happening inside books. Miss Havisham from Great Expectations becomes Thursday’s mentor to teach her bookjumping and train her to be a part of Jurisfiction. She also loves driving cars in a very death-defying way. If a character, plot line or book are Boojummed, they disappear from all copies of the book. Pagerunners are characters who jump to other books and change their plots because they are bored with their monotonous character life. Prose Resource Operatives from Jurisfiction may die if they go investigating in an adventure book. Grammasites are parasites that feed on grammar. Example is an adjectivore that eats all the adjectives describing a noun until there is no way to describe it. An extreme neocon party leader believes that his 3 MP party can win the next election by making a newly discovered long lost Shakespeare play license free. He almost succeeds until he and the play go missing before the election.

I had forgotten just how wonderful the Thursday Next books are. I'm not sure why I didn't immediately pick up the rest of the books in the series and wish that I had so that I could have enjoyed them sooner. These are the kinds of books that fascinate me, make me laugh and wish that I could stay lost in them forever. (Yes, that was an intended pun.) I love all of the literary references that Fforde effortlessly wove through the book. When an author can accurately twist and shape words according to their actual and connotated (probably not a real word but I like it) meanings to further the plot, enhance the dialogue and build an amazing alternative universe, I'm a fan. (and yes, by that I mean a fanatic) This is the kind of book that should become a classic not popular mush like Beloved. (Sorry, I'm not sorry. I just don't like it) I highly recommend this book and the entire series to all bibliophiles everywhere.