The Well of Lost Plots: 3 (Thursday Next Novel) - Softcover

Fforde, Jasper

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143034359 ISBN 13: 9780143034353

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

The third 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--from the author of Early Riser

Jasper Fforde has done it again in this genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment. After two rollicking New York Times bestselling adventures through Western literature, resourceful BookWorld literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And what better place for a respite than in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books--like the one she has taken up residence in--are scrapped for salvage. To make matters worse, a murderer is stalking the personnel of Jurisfiction and it's up to Thursday to save the day. A brilliant feat of literary showmanship filled with wit, fantasy, and effervescent originality, this Ffordian tour de force will appeal to fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse.

About this title

Review

Word-of-mouth among readers often does more to make an author's name than any publicity campaign. That's certainly the case with Jasper Fforde, and The Well of Lost Plots will be eagerly devoured by his ever-growing coterie of admirers. Fforde writes playful and exhilarating books (which make delightful sport with the very art of fiction itself), and the experience his work offers the reader is quite unique. It's little wonder he has virtually created his own market. As in Lost in a Good Book and The Eyre Affair, this new novel is as much about itself and the whole world of books as it is about its putative plot. But a plot is needed so that Fforde can sustain his amazing inventiveness, and the narrative is kicked into action with the return of literary detective Thursday Next.

It's almost impossible to summarise the amazing adventures in which the beguiling (and confused) Ms Next becomes involved, but after she leaves Swindon (and her life inside an unpublished book called Caversham Heights), she becomes involved in the inauguration of a golden age of fictional narrative. But this turns out to be a very dangerous experience, and she finds herself having strange encounters with Dickens' Miss Havisham (even more eccentric than she was in Great Expectations) and enduring an unsettling journey into the world of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. But who is the villain laying waste to her memories? And will she come to terms with the fact that her husband Landen exists only in her mind?

As this synopsis indicates, The Well of Lost Plots is a truly unique jeu d'esprit. It helps to be familiar with many of the books being riffed on here, but even if you're not, this will be one of the most idiosyncratic and often hilarious experiences you will find a within the pages of a book. Jasper Fforde enthusiasts know that already. --Barry Forshaw

Review

"The well of Fforde's imagination is bottomless in the delightful third instalment of his Thursday Next series . . . [W]hat keeps this series humming is Fforde's lively engagement with books and the indefatigable woman he's created to defend them."
--People

"Fforde creates a literary reality that is somewhere amid a triangulation of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, and Miss Marple."
--The Denver Post

"Fforde has created a legion of fans with work that moves beyond clever into the realm of the creatively twisted, a space sparsely inhabited by those who can both envision and portray a skewed world . . . . The Well of Lost Plots reads nicely as a stand-alone and avoids the serious misstep of being a retread of its predecessors."
--The Denver Post

"Fforde's inventiveness remains a bookworm's delight."
--Entertainment Weekly

"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."
--Publishers Weekly

"Great fun--especially for those with a literary turn of mind and a taste for offbeat comedy . . . My favorite in the series so far."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Murderously fun . . . . A delightful, satirical frolic through literature . . . . Unique and wildly entertaining."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Charles Dickens was one of the British Isles' most popular novelists, and Jasper Fforde is winging into a similar stature on his Victorian coattails . . . You don't need to have read either of Fforde's first two books . . . to keep up with much of the action in The Well of Lost Plots. But why wouldn't you?"
--The Oregonian (Portland)

"Even more fun than its predecessors."
--Orlando Sentinel

"Like Alice down the rabbit hole, a reader of Fforde's books falls into a crazy and often quite funny world, where satire meets silliness. Once again, this author's imagination seems to know no bounds."
--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Fforde's bibliophile japery is in the school of Douglas Adams--think of it as a hitchhiker's guide to the library."
--The Guardian (London)

"Bibliophiles will find . . . The Well of Lost Plots a hoot . . . Exceptionally clever."
--The Rake

"Fforde has settled comfortably into series mode, producing another fun romp in an alternate universe where books are more real than reality."
--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0143034359
• ISBN 13: 9780143034353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 375