Lost in a Good Book (A Thursday Next Novel)

If you can appreciate the hilarity of Miss Havisham bemoaning a Porsche as she prefers a Bugatti, then this book is for you. Fforde's writing oftentimes interjects historical conjecture. This is not done in a tired fashion, but treatment of issues many can appreciate in a way that is serious but laughable at the same time. Although I do not know anything about the author's actual life it is clear that seemingly endless wars with little significant movement or improvement has worn on the author, and it wouldn't be shocking to find that Fforde served within the past couple decades, or at least had someone close do so. The characters are well developed, and it's really a fantastic book overall with plot twists, a little sprinkling of fear, and interesting dynamics that are clearly drawn from actual experience and related in a manner that is appreciable.

SpecOps agent Thursday Next is still reeling from her near-death encounter with the evil supervillain Acheron Hades and her successful victory over him within the pages of Jane Eyre, during which she accidentally altered the ending to a much more likable one (although some in her alternate universe would disagree.) Thursday finds herself overwhelmed by the fallout after her stunning coup. She is pestered by SpecOps' PR agent who insists on television appearances and possible movie deals, is hounded by the sinister Goliath Corporation executives who are angered at her imprisonment of one of their own inside Poe's "The Raven," and is facing charges of an unknown nature before a Jurisfiction tribunal. Not to mention the fact that her new husband has been eliminated because she's refused to cooperate with Goliath and an upper level division of SpecOps. As if that weren't enough, Thursday learns from her time traveling father that the world is destined to end in a few brief months and it's up to her to discover why and how to stop it (while also trying to save her hubby at the same time). Sound a bit strange? I haven't even mentioned her encounter with an angry Neanderthal, her apprenticeship under Miss Havisham, her exploration of the 400 mile long, 52 story Jurisfiction library or her pregnant Dodo bird! As you can see, describing a Jasper Fforde novel is nearly impossible without sounding like I'm spouting a lot of gibberish. But though you might easily brush this off as a bit of fluff that's not worth the read, let me correct that mistake. Fforde's books, as surreal as they are, read like an introduction to great English literature and are full of wonderful characters, interesting plots and excellent dialogue. His off-beat and quirky humor ensures the reader will have several hours of entertainment and fun. If you've never read any of his books, I would recommend that you start with 'The Eyre Affair', in which you'll get a crash course in Thursday's alternate world and see the blossoming of her relationship with her husband. I'd also recommend his Nursery Crimes series which is similar and just as entertaining.

Any book that starts with a contemporary version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is a book worth reading. (An even zanier lift from Alice occurs when Thursday pops into Kafka’s The Trial.) In this installment, Thursday has become a media sensation by dint of her jump into the pages of Jane Eyre. She becomes apprenticed to Dickens’ Miss Havisham to learn how to perfect book-jumping, and she does some serious time jumping with her father to prevent the world from ending by pink sludge. Connected to all of this, her husband Landen has been “eradicated” by the corrupt multinational “Goliath,” and a lost Shakespearean play “Cardenio” has been discovered. On the lighter side, Pickwick, her pet dodo, has demonstrated he is a she by laying an egg. Fforde hits his stride with this second book.

This is the second book in the Thursday Next series. So far there are five books in this series with a sixth book "One of Our Thursdays Is Missing: A Novel" scheduled for a March 2011 release date. This was a wonderful book. Not a super easy read, but very different from anything else I have ever read. You got a society very focused on books and book crime, time travel, travel through books, a little fantasy, a little mystery, a little sci-fi, and a lot of humor. A great addition to this series. I liked it even better than the first book in the series The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel (Thursday Next Novels (Penguin Books)).

Thursday Next is newly wed to Landon and has recently found out she is pregnant. Well of course this is when all hell breaks loose. Goliath Corporation wants Thursday to retrieve Jack Shitte from "The Raven" where she left him; in order to convince her to do this they have eradicated her husband Landon. Now Thursday is the only one who remembers Landon ever existed. On top of this a rare Shakespeare play has turned up, someone is trying to kill Thursday with a plethora of coincidences, and Thursday's father is popping in occasionally to let Thursday know the world is about to end any day and only Thursday can fix it. Thursday is determined to reinstate her husband and stop the end of the world, as well as stay alive herself. Thursday's efforts will take her deep into the department of Jurisfiction; where she learns that the literary landscape is deeper than she ever knew.

To say that a lot happens in this book is an understatement; this book is packed with intertwining plots and many strange coincidences. It will have you laughing out loud a number of times, and also engage your mind as you try not to miss any of the strange references and follow the entangled plot. That being said this was not a fast read, but it was a very engaging, entertaining, and clever read.

I am just flabbergasted at how well Fforde creates this amazing world and makes it engaging and not at all confusing. We learn a lot more about Thursday's world and the introduction of Jurisfiction adds a whole new dimension to the story. We are also learning a lot more about Thursday herself and about what makes her such an extraordinary character. A lot of depth was added to both the world and the characters in this book and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about them both.

Overall a wonderful book. The plot is complex, the world and characters more filled out, very funny and engaging. I just loved it. I can't wait to read the next book in this series The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next Series). I will mention though that this is not a fast read, type of book, it does take a bit of effort to follow all the jokes and the complex plot...still trust me the effort is well worth it.

Thursday Next is back from her triumphs in The Eyre Affair. If you have not yet read that book, please do so before Lost in a Good Book. You will be totally confused in the first half of this book if you do not.
In The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next had been working on Shakespeare-related literary crimes in London as a Special Operative when she was summoned into a special assignment with a highly classified outfit. It all related to a run-in she had with a professor while in college. The assignment left her literally flat on her back, and after recuperating she returned to her hometown to face her past and her future. She had been trying to escape from both since her unit was decimated in a terrible lost skirmish in the Crimea during which her brother was lost, and her relations with the love of her life were terminated.
While there, important manuscripts began disappearing in unexplained ways and she found herself in the middle of the investigations. Helped by unexpected interventions from outside this time and dimension, she made steady progress towards protecting Dickens and Bronte from unpopular bowlderizations.
As Lost in a Good Book opens, Thursday finds herself happily married and expecting. But dark clouds soon rain on her happiness, and she has to deal with unexpected sadness. Complications from The Eyre Affair create new problems for Thursday. In the process, she has to develop new talents and solve new problems . . . some of which threaten our very existence! Along the way, she has some unexpected help from new friends . . . including Miss Havisham from Great Expectations!
The Eyre Affair focuses on the discontinuities between what readers would like stories to say and what authors have provided.
Lost in a Good Book shifts that focus to how to read fiction in richer and more delightful ways. If you are like me, you will find yourself remembering sleepy afternoons in your childhood as you day dreamed about being a character in a book.
Thursday's personal life also takes a delicate and thoughtful look at what it means to be connected to another person and what a personal loss really is. Anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one will find understanding and comfort in part of this story.

After you read this book, I strongly encourage you to move on to the brilliant third book in the series, The Well of Lost Plots. Although the books can be easily understood as a stand-alone effort, you will probably be more thrilled by The Well of Lost Plots if you sneak up on it by reading the other two books first.
Ultimately, these books most appeal to those who love literature as readers . . . and for whom classic characters seem like old trusted friends. Those who like science fiction, fantasy, mysteries and adventure stories will be much less pleased. Those aspects are amusing icing on the cake rather than the cake.
To me, Lost in a Good Book most seems like a continuing literary update and enhancement of Alice in Wonderland with Thursday Next as Alice.
As before, the Britain you will read about in this book differs substantially from the current one. Although the reason is never stated, I inferred that this one that has been influenced by time travelers to the detriment of Britain. The Crimean War had continued until recently since the 19th century between Britain and Imperial Russia. Wales is not part of Britain and is a people's republic that is not sympathetic to Britain. Literary debates are more important than political ones. Britain has succumbed to the military-industrial complex in ways that are usually ascribed to the U.S.A. Much technology is primitive (such as air travel by dirigibles) while other technology is very advanced (time travel, cloning of extinct animals as pets, and dimension shifting).
The overall themes of the book involve the classic struggles between the light forces of good and the dark forces of evil, against a backdrop of separated love.
The satire is layered on with a heavy hand. The names give you a sense of this. There are a number of agents who are assassinated. Their names provide clues as to what's coming next such as Kannon and Phodder. One of the new villains has a name that will make you chuckle every time you read it. The overall effect is a lot like Voltaire's Candide and occasionally has an element of Rabelais.
Regardless of any temporary drawbacks in the book to your preferences as a reader, the charming moments will easily carry you forward wondering what marvelous writing innovation next awaits you.
Plan to read this one in one sitting. It's hard to put down.
How does the book compare to The Eyre Affair and The Well of Lost Plots? I found the book to be more of a transition between those two books than a story of its own. Therefore, I thought this was the least strong book in the series to date.

Thursday Next, the LiteraTec, (literary detective), from "The Eyre Affair," returns in "Lost In A Good Book" to ferret out and prevent literary fraud and forgery, protect the integrity of the existing literary tradition, as well as to provide delightful entertainment for the reader astute enough to seek her out. SpecOps officer Next lives and works in the alternate reality of London, 1985, which is a familiar world in many ways. The people look much as they do now, although styles have a retro look. People watch TV, listen to their favorite music, go to work each day to pay the rent, and they still fall in love. However, the computer chip has not been invented nor has the jet engine, but time travel is common, so there is a police force which takes care of time travel-related crime. England and Czarist Russia have been at war, the Crimean, for 131 years. It is England's Vietnam taken to greater depths...or heights. The Russian Revolution never happened, so no Cold War, Lenin, or Stalin...but serfs are still around, I guess. The national economy is dominated by Goliath, a monstrous corporate conglomerate, which prides itself upon its ability to provide the English with every material necessity - "Cots to Coffins: Goliath. All You'll Ever Need." Oddly enough, the nation's favorite pastime is literature. These folks read big time! Many change their names to John Milton, Charles Dickens, George Gordon, Lord Byron, etc., and Shakespeare denialists abound.

Even though she has become a sought after celebrity due to her her recent rescue, revision, (and improvement), of the novel "Jane Eyre," Thursday's superiors are not particularly pleased with her performance. Even more distressing, her husband of one month, Landen Park-Laine, is eradicated - erased from time - by the monolithic Goliath Corporation, and she is the only person who remembers he existed. In order to save him, she must release the villain, she imprisoned in Poe's poem "The Raven." Due to a series of events too bizarre to be merely coincidental, Thursday believes someone related to her old enemy, Acheron Hades, may be out to get her. Oh! Our heroine is newly pregnant and her pet dodo, Pickwick, lays an egg!

Along the way to rescuing Landen, she becomes apprenticed to Miss Havisham, of "Great Expectations" fame, who has agreed to assist her. A limited stint in the Jurisfiction division improves her text-hopping skills nicely. Thursday also appears before the magistrate of Kafka's "Trial," passes through "Sense and Sensibility," encounters the Cheshire Cat, escapes The Questing Beast, is involved in the discovery of Shakespeare's missing play, "Cardenio," and learns the world may end in a fortnight. By the way, Armageddon may be pink!

Jasper Fforde's sense of the absurd is extraordinary. He plots, un-plots and re-plots with almost demented fervor, and his prose is skilled and imaginative. His energy, and his joy in the written word, is contagious. Filled with intelligent puns, word play, and irreverence, "Lost In A Good Book" continuously delights. Fforde's wonderful sense of timing, along with his hallmark satire, makes one want share with whoever is around to listen. Highly recommended!

JANA

Funny, original and fast-paced, full of word play and adventurous excursions into great works of fiction, Fforde's Thursday Next series is beach reading for literature lovers. His alternate universe, complete with time travel and fictional dimensions, hangs together with mind-bending logic, and Literary Detectives SpecOps Agent Thursday Next is resourceful, quick-witted, and determined, but still has lots to learn (code for blundering, impetuous and rash).
As the story opens, newly married Thursday Next is enduring a round of celebrity for the exploits of her first adventure in "The Eyre Affair," in which she restored "Jane Eyre," with an "improved" ending, ended the Crimean War and defeated an arch villain, trapping a minor villain, a Goliath Corp. executive, in the stanzas of Poe's "The Raven." Amid all the furor nobody much cares about the lost exec, except his half-brother, head of Goliath, a conglomerate increasingly recognizable in our own world.
But the Goliath boss cares enough to "eradicate" Thursday's husband in revenge, killing him off in a childhood accident. To get her husband back, Thursday must rescue the boss' brother from "The Raven." But the pages of Poe are dangerous and her navigation skills are shaky (though she is to be tried in Kafka for her interference with the Eyre ending). So she takes on a new career in Jurisfiction, apprenticing to Miss Havisham, though keeping her husband-saving mission secret from the sports-car mad, man-hating old lady.
Meanwhile, she's dodging death-by-coincidence with the help of an entropy monitor - a jar of lentils and rice - given to her by her retiring genius Uncle Mycroft (who shows up mysteriously in the pages of Sherlock Holmes) and helping her eradicated, time-flitting father save the world from ending in pink goo within days.
Jam packed with wit, winks, allusions and puns, fueled by a madcap plot and an ever burgeoning series of subplots and side trips, and fleshed out with the attention to detail that has earned Fforde comparison to J. K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett, this book provides hours of dazzle and delight.

Literary Detective Thursday Next, who has just discovered she is pregnant, is in hot water again when her husband, Landen, is eradicated at age 2 in an evil attempt by the corrupt Goliath Corporation to blackmail Thursday. In her previous adventure, Thursday trapped one of Goliath's key employees inside The Raven, and they want him back. If all this sounds impossibly confusing, it isn't once you get into the swing of Fforde's incredibly complex alternate reality.
Thursday, who has slipped into an alternate alternate reality where she has no husband (but seems to have a mysterious boyfriend named Miles of whom she has no memory), is determined to do whatever it takes to get Landen back. To meet Goliath's demands she has to learn how to jump into books without the help of her uncle's invention, the Prose Portal, which has been destroyed. She seeks out the mysterious Mrs. Nakajima, the only other person Thursday knows who can "book jump." Her search leads her into the shadowy world of Jurisfiction, where a dedicated group of fictional characters police the fictional world from inside the books, just as Thursday's agency, LiteraTec, does from the human side. As an apprentice to Miss Haversham (yes, that Miss Haversham), Thursday undertakes her education while dodging evil Goliath persons, coincidences gone wild, and a corrupt ChronoGuard agent attempting to catch Thursday's time-jumping fugitive father (who often pops in to give Thursday a hand).
And then there's Pickwick, Thursday's genetically engineered dodo, who has laid an egg .
The second Thursday Next installment is every bit as fun as the first. The writing is incredibly clever, filled with literary allusions and amazingly deft wordplay. About 90 percent of it goes straight over my head, but the 10 percent that I do get is plenty to make me laugh out loud. And just when you think it can't get any crazier or funnier, you get socked between the eyes with tender, emotional moments that make me wonder if Thursday could actually "book jump" into my living room.

Thursday Next continues her physics-bending frolicking in the second book of Jasper Fforde's simply amazing fantasy series- Lost In A Good Book finds the intrepid SpecOps Agent on an adventure even more convoluted than the one she engaged in The Eyre Affair. Although it may sound implausible to suggest that the author actually topped his first tome, allow me to suggest it anyway, for the unbelievable has just become believable; if anyone who has read Affair scoffs cynically at the notion that lightning can strike twice, be prepared to sizzle a second time. The goods have been delivered, in a wonderfully competent and successfully satiating way, even with the pressure on.
It doesn't take long for the plot to thicken; Fforde is a master at making things interesting soon into the game. Next has a plethora of items on her plate; let's see, where to start? For one thing, there is the Cardenio manuscript which needs to be investigated and authenticated. Then there is the prickly issue of Jack Schitt and his marooning in a copy of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. The powers that be who are desirous of Jack's return erase Next's husband Landen from existence and offer his return in exchange for Next's assistance in rescuing him from the text as they would a plump carrot to a starving bunny. A collection of downright devious and impossibly uncanny coincidences plague the literary gumshoe- who or what is behind them? Is Acheron Hades back? Maybe...maybe not. Oh, and here's another thing...all the matter on the planet is about to lose any and all claims to homeostasis, thus causing a deevolution of existence into viscous, frothy slime, an armageddon of proteinaceous proportions.
The key to solving all of these interconnected conundrums is the same as in Affair- Thursday must cross the threshold of reality and enter into the pages of several stories. In doing so, she comes across an infinite library which is home to all books; past, present, future, published, forgotten, everything is here; even glimmers of incipient notions and sections of putative plot. Fforde's spider-swift prose spins a numinous web where characters from the classics- such as Miss Havisham from Great Expectations and the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland- intertwine and fuse with incredibly novel, imaginative concepts such as a gravity-based tube for speedy global traversal and a device for quantifying levels of entropy composed of lentil beans and rice particles to tell a tale that, although as tall as a skyscraper, is nevertheless one any reader is willing to buy into. Each scene/chapter/sequence is a distinct building block, prefaced effectively by brief little epigraphs, and it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience trying to figure out how each block will eventually fit into the enigmatic tapestry being constructed. There is much humor present in the tale, which is always a risk for any author; except for a very minimal amount of puns which fell flat, the comedy was well-received (of special note are several small occurrences with Thursday's cloned dodo bird Pickwick). It truly is amazing to see how everything balances out in the end, how such a complex tale is rendered with seemingly effortless ease. This was no easy book to write, that's for certain; still, a feeling of parsimony will come over you as you complete each part, and it will feel as if you read a deep fable even though it is a totally escapist project at its core.
So go ahead. Lose yourself in the world where Goliath Corp. rules with a shadowy fist and there's a guy named Spike who hunts not only the undead but supreme evil beings. This is a book made for the summertime- whether at the beach or in the shade, grab a copy and let Fforde's magic take hold. A superb read worth every star.

I absolutely devoured this book. Within three days of receiving it from the Sci-Fi Book Club, I was done, licking my chops and waiting for the Well of Lost Plots to arrive.
If you didn't like the first book, my advice is don't waste your time and money with this one. The jokes are similar, the attitude toward literature is the same, the characters (and most of the characterization) are the same.
This is an easy world to get lost in. I've found myself wondering, as I read other books, about what the characters would do if they were in our world, or how they would interact with other fictional characters. The idea of Jurisfiction is brilliant, and there is no limit to the adventures that are available in this universe. Add to that the potential plot lines with the ChronoGuard ....
No plotline givaways here (you can read the other reviews for that). Just a few comments:
I LOVED the names of the expendable SO-15 agents. Slorter and Lamb were my favorites.
Ascheron's sister seems to be unbeatable. Should make for great drama later on.
I HOPE Thursday gets better at jumping from book to book -- although she SHOULD get a medal or something for jumping solo into Poe.
Through it all, Fforde displays the same wit that made me love The Eyre Affair. I'm ready for the next one.
I just wish there was a contest that fans in the States could get in on! By the time I got my book and looked at the crossword puzzle on the back, the contest was over!

In this fantastically entertaining sequel to The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next continues her job with SpecOps ensuring that order is maintained in the world of books. This is no ordinary work of fiction. The first thought I had while reading it, apart from "Man this is hilarious", was how much it reminded me of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide series. But this goes oh so much further. No classic work of fiction is safe and any famous fictional character may be deputised and added to the story.
We're talking about a parallel universe of incredible detail and vast imagination. Where dodos are pets, Tasmanian tigers are watchdogs and the annual mammoth migration is a major tourist attraction. Thursday Next is our protagonist and is able to read her way into books, yes that's right, actually INTO the story itself. But she has made some enemies who are capable of doing some pretty despicable things to cultivate their acts of revenge.
This is a wild, hilarious ride in which anything is possible, there is always something happening (nothing is mentioned for no reason), and the fun is endless. From time travel to Gravitube rides to visits through the pages of Kafka and Dickens, even the possibility of the end of the world this book's got it all.
I urge anyone who loves a good laugh and reads for the whimsical pleasure of transporting themselves via the written world to another time and place to get lost in this good book. You won't regret it for a second.

Poor Thursday. Just when she's out of "Jane Eyre", she's smack in the middle of a reprint of "The Raven."
This is not good. This is definitely not good.
But it's a lot of fun. To get her husband back, Thursday Next must delve into literature, and jump from book to book, to rescue her erst-while husband, who may not exist, being wiped from reality by the Chrono-guards.
Be afraid. Be very Afraid.
Be tickled. Be very Tickled.
Fford's prose is a shot of white-lightening on an empty stomach. His (Oh god help us) references are too close to home to be more than funny and a little less than thought-provoking, and a joy to read!
Literary readers will scramble for reference books. Too bad, as Thursday Next will have been there first, and tidied them up a bit. Ordinary readers (being not Literature-types) will rollick in the humor, catch the best puns, but unless the reader is with "IT", could very likely miss the point.
Cudos, Mr. Fforde. Fantasy is now Literary, or is literacy now fantasy, and much, much too enjoyable.
BUY THESE BOOKS. READ THEM.
Catch a pun, win a prize. Catch a particulr metaphor, win a book. Catch the point, and sit at home satisfied that I get it. While the rest of the world sits home and waits for "something" to happen.
While you're waiting, read these books. It will help pass the time.

Thursday Next, a member of the Literary Detective Division of Special Operations in England, lives in looking-glass universe in which all the "givens" of our world are turned upside down. The Crimean War has just ended after 150 years, Thursday has a pet dodo, and Neanderthals have been reintroduced to the world. Her father, a former ChronoGuard, travels through time and can alter both the past and the present, and her uncle Mycroft has invented a Prose Portal, which allows people from the "real" world to travel inside books, an invention that the evil Goliath Corporation covets.
Thursday has just solved a difficult case, The Eyre Affair, in which she saves characters in Jane Eyre from murder and gives the book a better conclusion, and she has trapped the unscrupulous Jack Schitt of the Goliath Corporation inside Poe's "The Raven." In this sequel, the Goliath Corporation teaches Thursday a lesson, eradicating her husband, Landen Parke-Laine, by manipulating time so that he dies in an accident when he is a baby. Thursday, who has just found out that she is pregnant, now finds that she does not know who the baby's father is--because Landen never existed after the age of two. Blackmailed by Goliath, she must free Jack Schitt from "The Raven" if she ever wants to see Landen again. Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations, a long-time employee of Jurisfiction, takes her as an apprentice and tries to teach her how to get inside fiction without the Prose Portal and perhaps figure out a way to retrieve Landen.
Like The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book is the wackiest of pleasures, with off-the-wall literary characters performing outrageous deeds in which none of the "rules" of our universe apply. The plot and intrigue gain in complexity with the discovery of Cardenio, an unknown, and possibly phony, play by William Shakespeare, while pink slime threatens the existence of life on earth. The action is here episodic and the subplots do not really mesh, but each change of scene and subplot sets up opportunities for Fforde to show off his prodigious literary knowledge and wacky humor. The reader quickly becomes so caught up in the hullabaloo, that weaknesses, such as a looseness of plot and a lack of dramatic tension, can be excused. Commander Braxton Hicks, Akrid Snell, Chalk and Cheese, Dedman and Walken, Millon de Floss, Spike Stoker (the vampire containment expert), Alf Weddershaine and Sarah Nara, are as much a part of the fun as the outrageous puns, word play, and satire. The novel is high energy and high humor, and Fforde is well on his way to creating a heroine and a series which will gain him legions of fans. Mary Whipple

Time travel, Neanderthal lawyers, mammoth migrations, Supremely Evil Being hunts, stupid second law of thermodynamics tricks, diabolical corporations bent on retribution, all life on earth reduced to a pink goo, and - of course - Miss Haversham (of Dickens' "Great Expectations") doing her best Mario Andretti through the streets of England can mean only one thing: Thursday Next is back.
Jasper Fforde returns his sassy literary detective of "The Eyre Affair" for a second escapade in "Lost in a Good Book," as she battles enough bad guys to make MI-5 jealous. A special operative tracking malfeasance as it relates to books and lit (in a world that craves Shakespeare more than Spears), Thursday finds herself blackmailed into retreiving a Goliath Corporation enforcer she previously left trapped in Poe's "The Raven." Her new husband erased by the time-traveling ChronoGuards, Thursday winds up stuck in an alternate timeline she can't undo. Add to this the mysterious appearance of an unknown Shakesparean work, throw in a bizarre set of coincidences that seem bent on wiping her out as well , then top it off with her time-hopping fugitive father showing her the end of the world will come in a few weeks unless she can stop it, and our poor heroine is up the Thames without a paddle.
But all is not lost, for Thursday has a new trick up her sleeve: she can jump into books without the aid of her uncle's Prose Portal (from the first book.) Her skill brings the attention of Jurisfiction, a motley assortment of literary figures who are responsible for maintaining the integrity of all written material. Apprenticed to Miss Haversham, she quickly builds her skills to the point that she can even enter into the verboten Poe books, saving the world along the way.
In what can only be described as a whirlwind of a comic sci-fi thriller, "Lost in a Good Book" finds Fforde ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels. His writing chops are clearly a step up from "The Eyre Affair", but good grief! This book has enough plots, characters, action, and mayhem to be ten books. It's too much; the result being that nearly every scene is clipped in order to fit into its almost four hundred pages. This makes for an outstanding page-turner, but a confusing one to review. It actually lacks the depth of "The Eyre Affair" while - oddly enough - being more satisfying than its predecessor. Thursday has shed some of her Ally McBeal-ness, the villain is less over-the-top, and the author's gears are showing a bit less. The talent has caught up, but Jasper, please take it easy!
In my review of "The Eyre Affair" I commented that the book was "Douglas Adams Lite." Well, "Lost in a Good Book" begins its first page honoring Adams with an in-joke his fans will recognize. For anyone who has read both series, the comparisons with Adams' "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" are impossible to miss, but for those of us dying for that brand of humor and recklessness, "Lost in a Good Book" will definitely assuage the longing.
Enjoy!

In an alternate version of the early 1980's, Thursday next is a literature detective. It is her job to investigate and solve crimes against literature. In Lost in a Good Book, Thursday's husband Landen has been erradicated by the ChronoGuard (the division of SpecOps that controls time travel) and the evil corporation called Goliath. To get him back, Thursday must retrieve Jack Schitt from where she imprisoned him in The Eyre Affair, which was inside Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. Along the way, Thursday is introduced to an organization called Jurisfiction, a group of fictional characters and real people working together to stop people from hopping inside of novels and changing the stories. Thursday soon pairs up with Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens Great Expectations to recover a stolen copy of a lost Shakesperian play and to find a way to regain her husband.

I love Fforde's novels! I don't think there is an english major or book lover in the world who would not love the storylines and details of his novels. Getting to talk to and interact with all of your favorite literary characters, it's just too much fun! I do urge you to read The Eyre Affair before jumping into this novel.

Audio-Thursday Next, literary detective, weaves us through a series of books on another amazing adventure. Characters from literature can travel to the real world, or to other books. Fforde, is a master at using fabulous characters, wonderful language, interesting images, and a great plot.
The Jurisfiction co., centered in the Great Library where every book, written, published or not, is there. They protect against everything vocabulary devouring creatures that eat vocabulary to Bowdlerisers, to eliminate obscenity and profanity from books. Thursday becomes the apprentice to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, a expert book-jumper.( and race driver) She trains with the goal of getting her husband back.
The books is filled with unending fun and laugh out loud moments. Then it ended with a 'to be continued ending' <sigh> now I have to rush to get the next Next book. LOL

In a strange, parallel 1985, things are very strange. Vampires and werewolves wander the countryside, dodos are popular pets and the line between literature and reality is very thin: people can enter and leave novels and sometimes affect the reality within. Thursday Next, literary detective and hero of previous novel, The Eyre Affair, is once again entangled in a mess that threatens her whole reality.
The malevolent Goliath Corporation wants their vicious executive, Jack Schitt returned to the real world; he's been trapped in Poe's The Raven and only Thursday can get him out. As a form of coercion, they have eradicated her husband; by wiping him out of reality, only she (and a couple Goliath folks) remember him. Entering books isn't easy, however; in the previous volume there was a machine, but that is no longer available. Coming up with an alternative, while meanwhile avoiding a villain who can reverse entropy and cause coincidences, facing an awareness that the world is likely to soon end mysteriously and coping with the early stages of pregnancy (by a now non-existent husband) are among the challenges Thursday must deal with.
Despite the many witty things within this book, this is not a comic novel; the world is far too grim for a comic world. If the book is a little too muddled and a little too reliant on deus ex machinas to rate five stars, it is still strong enough to be very good. Fans of The Eyre Affair will be pleased; others are cautioned to read that book first to properly enjoy this one; it may stand alone well, but it works better as a sequel.

Thursday Next's adventures continue.

A very random book without much in the way of a plot. This doesn't have to be a bad thing - and wouldn't be if Fforde wisely chose to simply let us revel in ludicrous episodic adventures. Something like a Dr. Who or Sherlock Holmes structure, where there doesn't have to be some big linking overstory, but enjoyable characters can pop up here and there in different distinct episodes within a loose framework. Fortunately you don't need a workable plot or antagonist to make the story enjoyable: Fforde's sense of humour playing with literary conventions and his ability to create a stream of eccentric characters in imaginative settings are enough.

However, the unnecessary poorly executed plot (Landon is erased, and Thursday doesn't quite get around to restoring him - end of part two) does dilute the pleasure of the book: Plot is the second weakest aspect of this series so far. Yes, I understand that central to the fun of this book is playing with things without them having to make rigorous scientific sense, but it is possible to work towards satisfying resolutions consistent within the imagined (if surreal) world. It is annoying that supposedly super-perceptive street-wise Thursday only uses her unique and impressive powers to serve - with childlike trust - people who have only ever lied to her. This just doesn't work with what we know of Thursday. The line `blinded by love' doesn't cut it - Goliath is her enemy, and it is totally out of character that she never tries to take them on. It also is dodgy that she is happily distracted by adventures with Miss Havisham and a nice holiday by the sea, when she's supposed to be a driven, intelligent, highly resourceful and supernaturally gifted hero with her one true love to restore. It'd be great if Fforde could combine his impressive imagination with a robust novel (or even series) structure - but here it would be better if he dropped the deeper plots.

And while he's at it, it'd be great if his dodgy villains were collateral damage in this process. They're the weakest aspect of the series. This book's Hades is similarly paper thin: handed super-evil powers without even a whiff of explanation, and the motive, "You killed my brother," only making sense until you trace it back to the total lack of motive in her sibling. Likewise the Goliath corporation - the merest carbon shadowy mega-company lifted from a hundred bad derivative Hollywood flicks - which Fforde can't even bother giving a history.

So, sure, this is OK, and could even have been outstanding - Fforde has some real originality and talent - if not for the couple of glaring flaws.

In this follow up to "The Eyre Affair", Jasper Fforde proves that he's no flash in the pan, his witty prose continuing to add sparkle to a delightful storyline. The names of his characters are again imaginative and amusing, and his concept brilliant.

We rejoin our reluctant heroine Thursday Next, as she opposes the Goliath Corporation in a quest to restore her husband, who has been maliciously erased from the pages of history.

Just to make it more challenging, she's pregnant, and with this new turn of events she isn't sure who the father is. The rent is also due, and she has to contemplate doing a moonlight stake-out to make ends meet.

"Simple" you say - but nothing's simple in Jasper Fforde's world. A multitude of strange, possibly deadly coincidences, the discovery of a new play by Shakespeare, and the little secret that the world is going to end in a sea of pink goo in a few days makes things a bit more complicated.

"Is that all?" you ask - Nope, she's also supposed to learn how to bookjump with the Jurisfiction group, with training from the feisty Miss Havisham of Great Expectations, and venture without permission into Poe's dangerous classic poem "The Raven" to retrieve a well-lodged Schitt. She also has to battle an enemy even worse than Acheron Hades, while at the same time appearing as a defendant in a SO-1 hearing and attend a trial within a literary classic.

It's all in a day's work for our Gal Thursday, even though she's now hearing voices in her head, but this time she's got to get lost for a while until the heat dies down, and we look forward to Mr. Fforde digging her out and dusting her off in the next episode.

Amanda Richards, September 22, 2004

Thursday Next is back, and she has more problems, when the first time around. Not least among them are the fact that her husband was eradicated (not killed, just the nearly fatal accident he had at the age of two was made COMPLETELY fatal) and the end of the world, which is imminent in a matter of days.
This sequel to "The Eyre Affair" has all the fun of the original novel and even more characters from literature, including Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations" and Cheshire Cat. There is also a visit to Kafka's "The Trial" and many otther, not so obviouse, references and puns.
Those who loved the original novel will be immensely pleased by this one. The characters are two-dimensional, but it's deliberate here, so can't be considered a drawback. And also, does it really matter if the characters are two-dimensional, if we have so much fun with them?
The plot is solid (if yo accept jumping in and out of books, genetically ingeneered dodos and charecters from Jane Austin asking for AA batteries), but is a bit below the high plank of the first one. That's due to two things:
1) the lack of novelty, due to the fact that mostly the novel develops the ideas introduced in the first one;
2) there is no great opponent on par with Asheron Hades here.
Still, this is one of the rare breed of books - humor written for people, who like to read. And it's written by a person who shares our love for books. If i could jump into any book, I guess a Thursday Next adventure will be my first choice.

Oh my. Not only does Thursday have her more normal difficulties--vampires, time interruptions, dodo care, and the aftermath of changing the ending to Jane Eyre--but now she's apprenticed to Miss Havisham in the Jurisfiction department. She's having to learn book jumping for a reason that I won't divulge, but I will say it has to do with Jack Schitt and is extremely important. Add book jumping apprenticeship to talk show appearances, entropy and an abnormal amount of coincidences, a new Shakespeare discovery, unhappy Neanderthals and her day job at SpecOps.
Fforde reminds me of literary minded Douglas Adams--he can throw so many different, bizarre, amusing situations into a pot, give it a good stir and ladle out a hilarious novel that doesn't stop. (I can't wait to see how he handles the next Next novel. I hope he can keep up the pace!)
If you like literary jokes, lots of silly puns, impossible realities and alternate universes, all in a plot that Monty Python would be proud of, start with The Eyre Affair and then grab this one. You'll be wanting a dodo too!

The second book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series started off a little slow, but as soon as it picked up, it was definitely an attention grabber. The thing i like about these books is how he plays with characters from other books, but doesn't mess them up as some authors might. I guess it's really difficult to explain without just writing out the entire plotline, but i'll say this much: if you like english classics like anything written by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens.....stuff like that, and if you've actually read those books, i think you'll like this series (though the writing style isn't the same....which I think is a good thing). He borrows characters and settings from those books a lot to write his books. I was glad that I had read those books back in high school because I'm not sure I'd like these books as much if I hadn't.....might not have understood them as much.
At any rate, I did like this one, though it had an Empire Strikes Back ending (unlike the first which had A New Hope ending), which leaves me hanging until the next book comes out.
Again, if you're into the classics, I'd definitely recommend this book (though start with 'The Eyre Affair' as that's the first in the series).

The second Thursday Next novel, LOST IN A GOOD BOOK by Jasper Fforde, takes right up for the first, THE EYRE AFFAIR, left off.

We are back in the Great Britain of Fforde's 1986, in which the Crimean War is just wrapping up, literature is the great driver of pop culture, and the government division of Special operations employs Thursday as a literary detective. This time, she is the repeated target of coincidences that all seem aimed to kill her. The complicated plot involves her renegade chronoguard father, her eradicated family member, her pregnancy, her own trial for changing the plot of JANE EYRE in the first novel, her intense efforts to avoid cooperating with SpecOps' PR woman, the case of the CARDENIO manuscript, her efforts to find out who is engineering coincidences to try to kill her, her

training by Miss Havisham from GREAT EXPECTATIONS as a Jurisfiction agent (who can jump into and between books) and the pending end of the world.

The book is very much like the first, with punny names (like agents Kannon and Fodder, who are very quickly dispatched), interweaving, action-oriented plot lines, and fun and interesting literary allusions and plot devices. It's very difficult to summarize because there are so many different threads and characters, but we really enjoyed this one, so plan to read the next one, THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS, within the next

couple of months. The writing is very readable and fun. I recommend this!

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!

This is the second book in the Thursday Next series of literary mysteries by Jasper Fforde. If you haven't read the first one, The Eyre Affair, you will find spoilers in this review, so go check that out first - I recommend it!

After vanquishing Acheron Hades and giving Jane Eyre a better ending, Thursday Next is dealing with uncomfortable amounts of fame, but is very happy to be finally married to Landon, the love of her life, and expecting his child. She doesn't anticipate further adventures, but what she wants is very different from what she gets when the Goliath Corporation kidnaps her husband and threatens her into returning to the world of books. Apprenticed to Miss Havisham of Great Expectations, Thursday must re-learn how to jump into dangerous texts in order to rescue her husband and the world.

I have to say, I didn't love this book as much as the first one. It seemed to take forever for the story to get going and Thursday spent far too much time dodging publicity events rather than engaging in more interesting activities. Once it picked up and Thursday began entering books again, I started to enjoy it and predictably wanted more by the end, though I was bit perplexed by Thursday's casual attitude towards Landon.

I love when she gets involved with literature that I've read, which she does here; it's really why I'm reading these books in the first place. Fforde generally does a good job with the characters, making them entertaining but still like their book counterparts. The AU setting and time travelling doesn't interest me all that much. It feels too much like science fiction. So if you enjoy science fiction, you'll probably enjoy the beginning of this book a lot more than I did. I'll be picking up the third in the series though, especially considering I already own Something Rotten, number four.

I'll probably still recommend the series for those who enjoy light mystery with a little book love involved.

This is the second book in the Thursday Next series, and is every bit as good as the first. In Lost in a Good Book, Thursday Next must save the world while trying to rescue her eradicated husband Landen. Fforde's writing is humorous, making for a quick, light read. Several reviewers said this book is darker than the first, which I suppose it is, though it never would have occurred to me. It has very little violence and given the nature of Fforde's universe everything is reversible, so what does it matter if the attacks on Thursday are a little more personal in this book? I plan on reading the rest of the series, but I think I'll take a break and clean the puns out of my brain before I start another one. Fforde's humor is great, but I just can't read punny humor continuously.

I really enjoyed the first one, "The Eyre Affair", and mostly enjoyed this one. It wasn't as tight a story, and there were too many introductions of new characters (and too many dropped ones) to truly be called a sequel, but it was well done and interesting.

I'd have liked to know a little more about Aornis Hades, and her seemingly tossed in for good measure and as an afterthought plot. I hope that in the next book her character is developed more, though Acheron as the villain will be hard to top. He was fantastic.

I thought the introduction of Miss Haversham was fun and appealing. However, she seemed to completely take over each scene she was in, and pushed out characters from the first book I found much more interesting. I didn't feel Thursday's reaction to Miss Haversham all that realistic, based on the first book, and again, she was overwhelmed by the secondary character.

I like Thursday's ability to jump into fiction books, but couldn't quite connect the first one with this one - I'm not sure we were meant to, actually. Where's the larger-than-life (and horribly cliched) Goliath? What about her father's severely diminished role? And Spec Ops? They're reduced to nothing more than caricatures of their caricatures. And poor Landon, will he ever have a continuous storyline? Or a jumbled mess of a forgotten one?

Over all, this was a good sequel but I have to agree with previous reviewers: without reading book one, it's mind-bogglingly difficult to follow. Still, it won't stop me from reading "Well of Lost Plots".

After having not only successfully defeated the evil Acheron Hades in The Eyre Affair (book 1) but also having married the love of her life Landen Parke-Laine one would think the main character Thursday Next hasn't a care in the world. However, after only a brief episode of happiness where she finds out she's pregnant, her husband is `eradicated' and someone is trying to kill her. Thursday must not only uses all of the tools available in real life to battle these problems but also those only available in fiction. Together with Thursday the reader visits books by Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Poe and others.

I've decided I do like Fforde's books after all. After reading The Eyre Affair (#1), which I didn't care for too much, I thoroughly enjoyed The Well Of Lost Plots (#3), and now mostly enjoyed Lost in a Good Book (#2). What made one book more enjoyable than the others? I've gotten more of the hints in books #3 and #2 than in one and the absence of scenes with Landen. I don't care for Thursday herself because she shows too little emotional depth for my taste and especially in scenes with Landen that seems to bug me more than at other times. And don't get me started on Landen ... I can't stand him, he seems so diffuse and bland it makes me wretch. Thank goodness Fforde has filled all of his books with vivid supporting characters of wit, interest and vigor as well as fascinating ideas! Whether it's Dicken's Miss Haversham who has a penchant for racing cars, the Cheshire Cat, who's the librarian, or one of the members of Thursday's family the other people in Fforde's books make them interesting and fun to read. His ideas ranging from footnoterphones to entroposcopes are amazing and hilarious. His hints and references to other books make me want to read more and more variety and that's always a good thing, isn't it? Fforde's book are on my shelves now and they're there to stay and to be read again.

This is the second in the "Thursday Next" mystery series. What I enjoyed most about the first one, "The Eyre Affair," was the combining of a thriller-type plot with a literary 'angle' (in Thursday's world the cops chase the criminals in and out of books).
In this sequel, Fforde emphasizes the fantastical over the literary: Thursday's world now include such non-literary elements as a race of cloned Neanderthals confined to menial labor, a transportation system that sends you from one side of the wo5rld to the other directly through the earth's core, and a corporation so powerful that it can erase people from history entirely.
This is all highly entertaining but readers who loved the first book for its literary references will have to wait until later (roughly page 163), when Fforde introduces a new cluster of literary characters, including Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations) as the wiley leader of a posse of fictional cops policing the world of literature itself.
Even the more 'classical' reader will be rewarded by sticking with the book past this halfway point.

Thursday Next has become a fifteen minute legend for stopping the multinational Goliath Corporation from extending the Crimean War in order to sell weapons (see The Eyre Affair). However, fame proves nasty for Thursday especially following her Monday appearance on the Lush show.
However, Thursday has more pressing matters than making TV appearances (considered heresy for a literary type) because her archenemy Goliath has deleted her beloved Landon. To reconstitute Landon, Thursday must first enter the taboo Poe pages of the Raven. Feeling initially hopeless, Thursday receives Great Expectations when Miss Havisham takes her under her wings. Thursday next starts a book-hopping journey as an obtruding character with more than just Landon at stake. She struggles LOST IN A GOOD BOOK with the world in grave danger.
Fans of classic literature will either love or hate Jasper Fforde's latest literary jabbing. The story line is satirical at its most humorous best as Mr. Fforde leads the laughs at what is a masterpiece and how society shreds and re-shreds every line looking for generation nuances to reinterpret. From the Bard to Kafka to Poe, no work is safe from the amusing interloping of Jasper Fforde, who makes his cast especially Thursday fit quite comfortably inside some of the masterpieces. Readers wanting something different or a chance to strike back at that English teacher who nuked literature will say evermore lost in this great book.
Harriet Klausner

I read the Eyre Affair rather quickly but found myself wondering through most of the book what was really going on. But perhaps this is not such a bad thing. If you are tired of being spoon fed your thrills or have recently waded through some not-so-good sequels (a.k. Harry Potter V, then tackle these two books immediately!
Book 2, Lost in a Good Book picks up where the last left off. We get a lot more clues as to what is going on in 1980's Britain, that is not really Britain as we know it (the Allies lost WWII?). But not to give anything away. In this story, Thursday Next is off to her next encounter with bad guys stealing first edition books and meets up with all sort of new characters - real and literary. She also learns how to slip in and out of the books without the aid of her uncle's contraptions. The borders between the literary world and the "real" world become even thinner in this book.
Be sure to reread a few of the classics - such as Sense and Sensibility, David Copperfield and many more -- or you may really be "lost" in this good book. Not for the nonliterary or unsophisticated reader, there is nevertheless enough Adamsian humor in this book (and especially the next book Well of Lost Plots - available in paperback now from the store.uk and the store.de for those not wanting to wait until Feb. 2004) to satiate those of us still devastated by Adams' untimely departure. I particularly liked the explanation (in Well of Lost Plots) of the spelling differences between American English and English English being attributed to a dearth of u's - more than that I don't want to give away.
Anyway a brilliant trilogy of books (a fourth is also coming) for Jasper Fforde's writing career to kick off.

I really enjoyed Fforde's first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair, I found it funny and entertaining and loved all the literary references. Lost in a Good Book is also funny and entertaining in spots, it just seemed to have everything thrown into this book, including the kitchen sink. The essential plot seems to involve Thursday trying to get her husband Landon back after he is eradicated by Spec-Ops, but there is so very little of that plot and so many other things going on that the plot line seems to disappear and reappear as needed.

The best parts of the story are when Thursday is jumping into books. Her apprenticeship to Miss Haversham from Great Expectations is extremely funny and entertaining as are her meetings with the Chesire cat and other literary characters - even the lowly appliance manual character. It's at these times the book shines and I enjoy it the most. But it is very hard to keep all the time jumping, dodo birds, Neanderthals, pink goo, Chronoguards and Goliath villains straight. The name puns wear a little thin after a while too. Jack Schitt isn't all that funny the 50th time you read it. Most unsatisfying of all is the lack of a resolution to the Landon story line, the book ends with a bit of a cliff hanger.

I already own The Well of Lost Plots, and I will read it eventually, just not too soon.

Jasper Fforde is a good writer. I sailed right through 'Lost in a Good Book' laughed several times and enjoyed the vignettes that are all through the book. But when I had finished it and thought back on the story line there wasn't much substance or connectivity between the chapters. There was a lot of easily recognizable characters from great literature with set up situations to remind you of the original story where you met them. But the plot line was thin and meandering and at the end of the book it felt like this entire book was a setup for the next one. Also, the resolution on the Jack Schitt situation was extemely unsatisfing, after having been warned repeatedly about something that she is a novice at and is extermely dangerous, Thursday Next just hops to it but then is trapped in a very conventional way.
The ride on this book is fast and the introduction of additional character traits to long established views of what you think great literature characters should/would be like is an excellant 'think outside the box' exercise. But the introduction of the other Law and Order structure of Jurisfiction makes me think that the author didn't see enough possibilities in the LiteraTec section of SpecOps and has opened up new opportunities to pull whatever he needs out of thin air. If this trend continues with this series there'll be no suspense of will they or won't they succeed, the rules will be bent in a new and different way to allow success. The character vignettes are entertaining in their own way but that's not enough to keep me coming back to even an imaginative series. I still want some logic to hang the story off of.

There is something about these series of novels that are just annoying. I don't know if it is the author's obvious condescension or the fact that the novels lack any sort of serious plot structure; but then, considering these are above all satires maybe I'm missing the point. My main problem with Lost in a Good Book is that there is only a semblance of a plot; in fact, reading each chapter is like watching a television show -- each chapter is like a stand-alone episode. It's not until the last 75 to 100 pages that any semblance of a plot begins to appear -- like the final story arc of television series heading towards its season finale. I will admit that Fforde continues to amaze with this alternate England he's created and I continue to enjoy his ability to use supporting characters from various novels like Alice in Wonderland and Great Expectations -- and keeping them in "character" all the while, while his creation of Jurisfiction is probably one of the most interesting of the novel. That being said, the fact that little no real action or plot development occurs until that 100 pages was a major disappointment for me, but it won't stop me from reading the next book in the series. I mean, how many times have we been disappointed in one book in a series? Lost in a Good Book is not a great book, but it is worth reading just so you can move on to the next book.

Book-jumping. The lives of books. Good, clean fun.
What's it about? Well, according to Fforde . . .
"I like subplots a lot, and it probably shows. In fact, you could say that Lost in a Good Book consists only of subplots - a month in the life of a literary detective. The actual plot I have decided, is the love interest between Spike and Cindy - all the rest are just subplots."
This is extremely funny because Spike is a very minor character and Cindy is mentioned only in passing.
This book is very much more about the world Thursday Next inhabits than the sort of narrative that drove The Eyre Affair. It's hard not to be grateful for that - it smells of more adventure to come.
One of my favourite elements is the snippets from the glossary of The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library (used, along with other "publications," at chapter openings primarily to fill in backstory - personal, social historical, and technical). For example:
PageRunner: Any character who is out of his or her book and moves through the backstory (or more rarely the plot) of another book. PageRunners may be lost, vacationing, part of the Character Exchange Program or criminals, intent on mischief.
The author's website also includes a little insight into the editing process - how a few simple substitutions can make things so much better. [...]

This book is the second installment in the "Thursday Next" saga and builds upon elements from the previous book, The Eyre Affair. If you have not read that, enough of the back-story is alluded to that you could probably make it through this okay, though you will still be missing much of the foundational flavor.

I wasn't quite sure where this book was going until about 3/4 of the way through, but was having too much fun to care. There are a couple of plot threads (and red herrings) that do tie together towards the end; the "over-all plot" more or less sneaks up on you.

If you're an avid reader, especially of "classics" you will get quite a kick out of this, and even just a passing familiarity with the topics touched upon will produce many chuckles. The book has a lot of "high brow English humor" -- sort of Monty Python meets P.G. Wodehouse, so if such things are not your cup of tea, you will be missing a lot of the humor and probably not get into it. Otherwise, definitely give it a go. If you liked The Eyre Affair, you'll like this too.

Love Thursday Next, the main character! Her world is a very different sort of place, and beyond that she travels into books, meeting the book characters. Fun, entertaining and very imaginative! Great story, replete with bad guys, good guys and lots of action!

I am well behind the curve on this series, having read so ffar only the ffirst two outings. They are the ones that have turned up on the shelves of my local branch library. The two books are pleasant enough, but hardly worth my spending money on them.

fforde's books are unquestionably amusing and I shall certainly read that next ones as they appear in the library. The plots of the books are outrageous, but that is fine with me. I am an opera fan; in comparison to late Wagner or early Verdi, these things are models of limpid lucidity. Nevertheless, there are structural problems which make these first two books considerably less than they might otherwise be.

-- Plainly, anything at all can happen in them. In "Lost in a Good Book," the plucky heroine is murdered about a third of the way through, then later she saves the life of every organic entity on the planet. If anything can happen, if being murdered, for Pete's sake, does not serve as even a minor hindrance, then what basis is there for dramatic tension?

-- Or this, with regard to the McGuffin of pink goo: why does it take until the end of the book to come up with such a simple answer, particularly for a questioner who has all of time to wander in? And why the noble self-sacrifice of a major character? The stuff could have been poured on a handy ham and cheese sandwich to achieve the same effect.

-- Then there is characterization. The simple fact is that the villains are not very well realized. The half-brothers who front for the monstrous Goliath Corporation (subtlety is not fforde's strong suit) are not noticeably differentiated from one another and they are pretty generic to boot. The Hades family representative who appears in "Lost in a Good Book" is said to be outstandingly evil but she is shown to be experiencing no more than a snit.

Finally, the author introduces the interesting concept of a "bloophole," an error by an author that makes a logical hash of the ensuing portions of his or her book. The heroine, Thursday Next, employed in a new job, is assigned to fix a bloophole involving the escaped prisoner in "Great Expectations." More subtly, at another point she stands on Robinson Crusoe's island and without comment (a nice touch I'll grant you) watches Crusoe rectify one of the most famous bloopholes in literature. In this book where, as I have said, anything can happen, there is just such a bloophole. In both of fforde's volumes it is explicitly clear that England (not Britain) and Czarist Russia had been at war on the Crimean Peninsula for 131 years. OK ... I can accept that (sort of.) It is also clear that something very like the Second World War broke out between Germany and England around 1940 and lasted deep into the late 1940s. During that war, the Wehrmacht overran at least the southern part of England and the Luftwaffe established airfields there. The apparent bloop arises in the question of just how England managed to prosecute a 131-year war when it was conquered and occupied at about the 90-year mark.

And, by the way, why is it that Thursday's world does not seem to contain a thing called the United States of America?

NOTE FOR THOSE BESET BY TRIFLES: The "ff" in fforde does not represent two consecutive lower case "f"s. The "ff" is a typographical approximation of the old capital "F" as it appeared in the Elizabethan system of handwriting. Therefore the form in which the author's name appears on the book, "Fforde" strongly suggests that there is an unlettered boob in the editorial offices of his publisher. (Unless, of course, it is a ffantastically subtle fforeshadowing of a ffuture development in the series.)

Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book (Viking, 2002)

While I have to say that I found Lost in a Good Book to be far more readable, on every level, than The Eyre Affair, I still had what I call the put-down problem: it was all well and good when I was actually reading it, but when I put it down to go off and do something else (for, when one is reading a four-hundred-page book, one must do things like eat and sleep, usually), I really felt no compulsion whatever to pick it up again--which is why, according to the book spreadsheet, Lost in a Good Book took me exactly one hundred eighty days to finish. Darned close to half a year. I'd read a couple of chapters, put it down, and then not touch it for three or four weeks. Not because it's a bad book per se, but because pretty much every book I picked up between September fourteenth of last year and March thirteenth of this year were, if not better-written, more compelling, better paced, wittier, or possessed of some other factor (or combination of same) that made them more interesting than this. But, again, that doesn't make this a bad book at all; I did end up finishing it (unlike the last book I attempted with put-down problems, which I struggled with for years before abandoning), and when all was said and done I quite enjoyed it. The question, however, is whether I want to continue with the series, and I find myself in the same quandary. It isn't like it was after I finished The Eyre Affair, where I pretty much had to force myself to pick this up, but there's that same sense of apathy making me ask myself why. I guess only time will tell whether I do or not. But, again, despite the book's rather aggressive mediocrity, I did enjoy it. *** ½

Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book (Viking, 2002)

While I have to say that I found Lost in a Good Book to be far more readable, on every level, than The Eyre Affair, I still had what I call the put-down problem: it was all well and good when I was actually reading it, but when I put it down to go off and do something else (for, when one is reading a four-hundred-page book, one must do things like eat and sleep, usually), I really felt no compulsion whatever to pick it up again--which is why, according to the book spreadsheet, Lost in a Good Book took me exactly one hundred eighty days to finish. Darned close to half a year. I'd read a couple of chapters, put it down, and then not touch it for three or four weeks. Not because it's a bad book per se, but because pretty much every book I picked up between September fourteenth of last year and March thirteenth of this year were, if not better-written, more compelling, better paced, wittier, or possessed of some other factor (or combination of same) that made them more interesting than this. But, again, that doesn't make this a bad book at all; I did end up finishing it (unlike the last book I attempted with put-down problems, which I struggled with for years before abandoning), and when all was said and done I quite enjoyed it. The question, however, is whether I want to continue with the series, and I find myself in the same quandary. It isn't like it was after I finished The Eyre Affair, where I pretty much had to force myself to pick this up, but there's that same sense of apathy making me ask myself why. I guess only time will tell whether I do or not. But, again, despite the book's rather aggressive mediocrity, I did enjoy it. *** ½

"...officers Hurdyew, Tolkien and Lissning heard you talking and listening..."(page 277 in the paperback edition)
Okay, maybe all the puns, word-plays, and literary allusions are so blatant, but this book is literally full of them.
Not to mention the names, which include Harris Tweed (a member of Jurisfiction, a police-type agency inside books), Spike Stoker (a vampire killer), and Cordelia Flakk (an overbearingly loud and flashy PR agent). That should give you some idea of the overall tone of the book - fun, quick, light, and unbelieveably SMART.
Fforde writes with a great wit, keeping the reader intrigued, laughing, and on the edge of his or her seat. It's not often that you find a book that accomplishes this: usually all books that are amazingly fun to read are, well, slightly lacking in the intellectual areas.
However, this book has it all - along with mystery, a little bit of romance, and some serious book-jumping.

I thoroughly enjoy inhabiting the world of Thursday Next and look forward to her next adventure. It's hard to find an original idea any more but Jasper Fforde has done it. When he teased us by hinting that Thursday might be going into our limited world for a while..I was screaming, "NOOOOO!" Luckily, she declined. Anyone who loves books will enjoy the fantasy of actually speaking to a favorite character and being a part of the fictional world. The book did make me feel ignorant because I haven't read every book the author refers to, but I got over it. I love Thursday's intelligence and ability to think quickly in emergencies. She's a wonderful heroine and I only wish I could jump in the book and tell her myself!

Jasper Fforde strikes again in the second installment of the Thursday Next series, the story of a time- and book-traveling literary detective. And once again Fforde wraps science fiction and mystery into one well-written bundle, with a touch of humor. But as with the the first book of the series, The Eyre Affair, I missed a lot of the literary references. I found myself looking up the names of some of Fforde's characters and found out that many had been literary characters. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it to science fiction and mystery fans.

Definitely, the second entry into the Thursday Next dectective/sci-fi/comedy series is not as good as the first. It's all over the place and kinda crazy but funny and entertaining all the same. What keeps you going through the odder and duller moments and all the madcap mayhem and slightly all-over-the-place plot, are the characters and the slow reveals of learning more and more about this alternate England. This felt like a stepping stone to the third book in the series which I hope will be less underwelcoming.

Thank you Mr. Fforde! Finally I have a whole series of intelligent, engaging books to look forward to.

I read The Eyre Affair early last year not realizing it was the first in a series. I devoured it and was sorry when it was over. This summer I was browsing in my favorite book store and low and behold...more Thursday Next! I was DELIGHTED!

Lost in a Good Book easily lives up to The Eyre Affair. Thursday continues to fight the injustices of the evil Goliath Company, who eradicates her husband but leaves her memories of him (and their unborn child) intact. Oh, and she saves the world from total destruction by pink goo.

Fforde's wit and play on words is fantastic and laugh-out-loud funny. I hope the series lasts until Thursday's grandchildren insist she retire into a good book of her choice.

Continuing the adventures of Spec-Ops agent Thursday Next, "Lost in a Good Book" makes use of several well known and popular fictional characters throughout Thursday's quest to reunite her with her newly obliterated husband. In a world nearly our own but one where literature is the most valuable commodity, Thursday literally makes herself a part of the stories we know and love. For those interested in fanfiction, Fforde has brought the medium to witty heights. For those who simply love classic literature Fforde answers the questions all readers secretly ponder: what if I could meet these characters.
Mrs. Havisham (of Great Expectations fame) is particularly engaging throughout her spats with the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat acts as the bookworld's resident librarian.
For everyone who has ever thought that books and stories live on, Fforde has enabled us to catch a glimpse of that life between the lines of text.

Jasper Pforde's imagination is running wild again. He continues the adventures of the literary police as they fight those who would establish a tyranny over great writing.

In his clever way, Pforde moves into the world of literature with characaters who appear and disappear into capsules of time, location, and literary works. He scrambles history and places events in different venues and time, coming up with incredible combinations.

Thursday Next, literary detective, battles the forces of evil-doers among the works of great writers. Her experiences show the wild, eccentric humor of which Pforde is a wonderful purveyor.

The novel is better read after The Eyre Affair, which begins the series. This introduces the reader to the twists and turns of plot and character.

Pforde is a master of his art, and he leaves the reader wondering about just what goes inside his head. The book is lively and compelling--a real page-turner that never fails to elevate and advance the joy of the reader.

Thursday Next is back, tracking down a lost Shakesperian manuscript not written by her father and trying to escape the machinations of the Goliath corporation. This book does a marvelous job of expanding the tale that began with The Eyre Affair.
There is a producer who wants to make The Eyre Affair into a movie while Goliath and the government want to keep the details of the mission quiet.
Some heavy handed tactics force Thursday to find an alternate method of retreiving Goliath's top agent, Jack Schitt, from the Raven. She must also find a way to stop an industrial apocolypse and recover the husband no one but she remembers.
This book is as much fun as the first and I can hardly wait for the next.

Jasper Fforde has created a true masterpiece in Lost in a Good Book, the second book of the Thursday Next series. In this novel, Thursday continues her battle with Goliath, the monopolizing corporation that controls the government, and Archernon Hades who, though dead, continues to haunt Thursday. In a world where characters can jump from their own stories and people can enter just about anything written on paper (seriously, EVERYTHING. There is a little detour into a washing label at one point), it is Thursday's job to investigate any literary problems (from forgery to kidnapped characters). Thursday encounters a number of fascinating characters that have enthralled audiences for years, including Dickens' Miss Havisham (who is Thursday's tutor for book jumping), the crazed narrator of Poe's "The Raven", and Austen's Fanny Dashwood (who is entirely misunderstood), as well as characters from a number of other classic works. All this she does while trying to save the world from a government experiment gone wrong (it involves strawberry flavored Cool Whip). Although the plot is entertaining, it is nothing compared to Fforde's incredible use of word play, irony, and satire. Fforde brings up questions of not only the integrity of the literature we read, but of politics as well (how much power should the government actually have, Big Brother, that sort of thing), yet his wit and humor present them in a very enjoyable light. With tons of laugh out load moments, Lost in a Good is possibly one of the best reads I've encountered in months.

Lost in a good book
Thursday Next uses time travel and book jumping in an impossible story of post-literary England. Every page has some form of visual invention and the jokes are even and well paced.
When you start, you feel that it cannot possibly keep going and the invention on every page must flag at some point, but it doesn't. The fun never stops as our heroine battles vampires and time travelling and lives inside a post literary work. An extraordinary work of imagination coupled with a great sense of fun.