Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel (Thursday Next Books, #2)

by Jasper Fforde

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Constant Rabbit comes “Harry Potter just for adults . . . [an] immensely enjoyable, almost compulsive experience” (The New York Times Book Review)—the second novel in the renowned Thursday Next series.

“[Lost in a Good Book] is satire, fantasy, literary criticism, thriller, whodunit, game, puzzle, joke, postmodern prank, and tilt-a-whirl.”—The Washington Post
 
If resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of Jane Eyre, she was sorely mistaken.
 
Her adventures as a renowned Special Operative in literary detection have left Thursday Next yearning for a rest. But when the love of her life is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must bite the bullet and moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside the books. There she is apprenticed to Miss Havisham, the famous man-hater from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who teaches her to book-jump like a pro.
 
If Thursday retrieves a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of Poe’s “The Raven,” she thinks Goliath might return her lost love, Landen. But her latest mission is endlessly complicated. Not only are there side trips into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of 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.
 
Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels:
THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT

• ISBN10: 0142004030
• ISBN13: 9780142004036
• Publish Date: 24 February 2004 (first published 18 July 2002)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Penguin Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142004036

Reviews

[brokentune]

‘Bad boy!’ she added in a scolding tone. The Tasmanian tiger looked crestfallen, sat on its blanket by the Aga and stared down at its paws. ‘Rescue Thylacine,’ explained my mother. ‘Used to be a lab animal. He smoked forty a day until his escape. It’s costing me a fortune in nicotine patches. Isn’t it, DH-82?’

This is such a clever book and there ere are so many quotable passages, but the problem is that may favourite parts contain spoilers of either this book or of pretty much any classic work of literature worth reading.

I really admire the level of detail and research that Fforde put into this book, but I didn't think it lived up to the enjoyment of the first book, The Eyre Affair, tho. Maybe the novelty of Thursday's world has worn off a bit already, maybe the incessant puns and jokes were just a bit too much.

However, Thursday is still one of the best protagonists out there - kickass and kind.

The only real problem I have with this book is that it was so obviously written with the idea to continue the story in book #3 and therefore doesn't even attempt to be a standalone story - which makes me feel somewhat cheated and tricked into having to get the next book to find out what happened to my favourite characters.

I NEED TO KNOW THAT THE EGG IS OK!

Seriously, not cool, Mr. Fforde. But I guess, now I know how Scott's or Dickens' readers must have felt when they had to wait for the next installments of their stories.

And, yeah, I obviously am still in denial that Harry Potter worked the same way - except that I wanted to read the other books for their own sake, not to find out what happened to one particular character.

Ugh.

(Changed my mind about the rating and going to go with 3*, not 3.5*.)

[Eve1972]

Another great read, I even think I may have enjoyed this one a bit more then the first and I LOVED that one!! Looking forward to books three through five of this series!!