Le puits des histoires perdues (Thursday Next, #3)

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Le puits des histoires perdues (Thursday Next #3)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 19,333 ratings · 1,047 reviews

Même poursuivie par une multinationale qui a juré sa perte, la star des détectives littéraires a droit à un congé maternité ! Pour Thursday Next, ce sera un séjour secret dans un mauvais thriller, un de ceux qui croupissent au fond du Puits des Histoires perdues. Ici, sous l'oeil de la toute-puissante Jurifiction, on recycle les livres de seconde zone comme les classiques...more

Paperback, 445 pages

Published November 2007 by 10/18 (first published May 3rd 2003)

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May 17, 2008 Lena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this book anywhere near as much as the first two in the series. While I think Fforde’s choice to set the action almost entirely in the Bookworld was an intriguing one, I also got the sense he was in over his head.

Like many of the partially completed books in the Well of Lost Plots, there is a great amount of creativity on display here, but also a lot of half-baked ideas and poorly developed characters. The action took place in so many different settings and with su...more

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Oct 03, 2010 F.R. rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In which my irritation at this series reaches a boiling point.

I had an odd reaction to the two previous Thursday Next novels, a curious mixture of subtle enjoyment and distinct annoyance. The enjoyment came from the fact that I’m a man who loves books and they were distinctly literary reads. But there was also a huge amount of quirkiness (never a quality I particularly like) and an arch ‘oh-isn’t-this-soooo-clever!’ self-satisfaction to the proceedings. There were points in the previous books wh...more In which my irritation at this series reaches a boiling point.

I had an odd reaction to the two previous Thursday Next novels, a curious mixture of subtle enjoyment and distinct annoyance. The enjoyment came from the fact that I’m a man who loves books and they were distinctly literary reads. But there was also a huge amount of quirkiness (never a quality I particularly like) and an arch ‘oh-isn’t-this-soooo-clever!’ self-satisfaction to the proceedings. There were points in the previous books where I laughed, but also points when I wanted to hurl my copy hard into the nearest brick wall. It’s rare that a series can walk such a fine tightrope, but ‘The Well of Lost Souls’ marks the point where I – at least – fell off.

The previous books split Thursday Night’s adventures between the real world (which is in fact a fantasy version of our world) and the world of books – where she can interact with great characters from fiction. The ‘real world’ stuff contained most of the plot, while the stuff set in books worked as amusing little sketches. In this volume however it’s all set in the book world, so its sketch after sketch, knowing reference after knowing reference, beloved character behaving oddly after beloved character behaving oddly. There is no grounding, nothing to reign in the silliness – it’s just wackiness built on wackiness until I really wanted to scream.

One of the most irritating things is how lazy it all seems. You have to hand Fforde bouquets for his inventiveness, but the clever jokes and ideas he comes up with are never developed into anything else. So we have Mr Toad in an automobile race against Miss Haversham; rage counselling sessions in ‘Wuthering Heights’; and ‘Macbeth’ retold for Yeast. All very silly stuff which doesn’t really go any further than those brief descriptions I’ve just given you. There are numerous instances of sketches revealing their points in the first few lines, but staying on for page after page and hammering those points to death. Probably the nadir is a retelling of the trial scene from ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which lacks all of Carroll’s true invention and adds absolutely zero to the original. (After awhile it reminded me of those little comic asides in the cartoon series ‘Family Guy ‘ – a show I remain ambivalent to. They are pointless, silly and not even half as funny as they would like to be.)

And yet within this superficial silliness, Fforde actually asks us to care. But how can one really care when the Miss Haversham of this book finds herself in jeopardy? All we have to do is open ‘Great Expectations’ and there she is again. And the Miss Haversham of this novel isn’t so well developed as a character away from Dickens that a reader would come to care for Fforde’s version instead. She – and many other literary figures – are just tossed in as throwaway jokes, but so little else is done with them that they remain pencil sketches of other author’s characters.

Though perhaps the most irritating thing of all is that throughout this book there seems to be a smug belief that this one of the cleverest and funniest novels anyone could ever read. The witty allusions, the literary knowledge and the endless, endless puns – you can almost hear the author slapping his back in congratulations at his own brilliance. Unfortunately this reader just found the whole thing incredibly tedious, and so even though the series goes on from here, I have now disembarked. (less)

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Jan 14, 2008 Martine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british, humour, science-fiction, modern-fiction, postmodern

In the third instalment of the series, real life becomes a bit too dangerous for Thursday, so she goes into hiding in the book world. And not just any part of the book world, but the Well of Lost Plots, where unpublished novels languish. Here, while the pernicious Aornis Hades tries to erase her memories, Thursday continues her training to become a Jurisfiction agent. Which is not as easy as it might sound, for characters are failing to show up for their Rage Control Meetings, murderous Minotaur...more

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Sep 10, 2007 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Outlanders with humor

Shelves: magical-mystical-worlds, i-recommend, fiction, fun-ny

In this third book, Thursday Next goes for a small holiday in a poorly written and unpublished novel in the Well of Lost Plots within the Book World. While there, she ends up joining the Book World police (Jurisfiction) as an apprentice to the Dickens Great Expectations character Mrs Haversham.

As in the previous two novels, this one if full of funny dialogues and meetings with characters from some of the great classics (Dickens, Brontë and Verne are just a few).

The books really revolves around...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Anthony Eaton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was surprised to see how many people didn't like this one as much as the first two. Personally, I loved it. Interestingly though, before I launched into the Thursday next books, I had already read the 1st 2 of Fforde's ' Nursery Crimes’ series, which intersects loosely with the book world setting of this 3rd novel, and for me a large part of the reading pleasure here was in the cleverness of that intersection, And so perhaps that has some impact upon the way I read the book.

Like the previous 2...more

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Oct 17, 2008 Sandi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, fantasy, funny-stuff

I jumped right into "The Well of Lost Plots" after finishing "Lost in a Good Book". I think I'm ready for some other reading for a while.

"The Well of Lost Plots" was a pretty interesting book, and it was fun. But, there wasn't a lot of plot to it and it jumped around a lot. Once again, Thursday's primary problem remains unresolved. I hope it gets taken care of in the next volume.

Oh, and I think I need to read "Great Expectations".

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Sep 08, 2007 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those looking for something different

Shelves: mysteries, fantasy-adult, sci-fi

Just got this one and had to read it right away. I was going to wait, as I still haven't read Lost in a Good Book, but I picked it up just to look through it and I couldn't put it down. I'm not even sure really why I like this series so much. Maybe just because it is so different. Or maybe it's all the Lewis Carroll stuff. But it was really good and I'm anxious to read more in this series.

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Sep 01, 2009 Scot rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the third installment in the Thursday Next, literary detective series, and to my mind the best so far. For this novel we leave (mostly) the alternative England of the first in the series, pass through (often) the BookWorld highlighted in the second of the series, and come to know Thursday’s refuge and hiding place from the evil mnemonomorph (love that word!) Aoris Hades, the Well of Lost Plots. This is the place below the Library of Book Two where incomplete or unformed literary works be...more This is the third installment in the Thursday Next, literary detective series, and to my mind the best so far. For this novel we leave (mostly) the alternative England of the first in the series, pass through (often) the BookWorld highlighted in the second of the series, and come to know Thursday’s refuge and hiding place from the evil mnemonomorph (love that word!) Aoris Hades, the Well of Lost Plots. This is the place below the Library of Book Two where incomplete or unformed literary works begin. Thursday arrives on a character exchange program and takes up detective apprenticeship under the formidable Miss Havisham of Great Expectations,(a riveting mentor I personally envisioned in the image of the character actress Reta Shaw, such a strong and forceful woman in Mary Poppins, Pollyanna, and the Ghost and Mr. Chicken).

I enjoy the barrage and overload of characters from a wide range of fiction interacting with each other in this lively novel, and the way Fforde expands this complex cosmology, while playfully teasing literary history, production, and consumption, and throwing in some weighty reflections on bureaucracy, organized religion, media technology, and pop culture along the way. We meet a pair of flat shallow generic characters early on, ibb and obb, and I came to really care about them as they evolved into the well rounded supporting characters of Lola and Ronald. Rather than try and explain the complicated plot and the Byzantine workings of the Well (and the Library above it), let me just encourage all to read this series in order.

I read a used American edition, which promoted the fact that it had an additional chapter added. I found this a bit tacky, personally. The novel ended much better without the addendum, even though I wasn’t reading it for aesthetic nuance but rather for some escapist folderol. The addendum would better serve as a short story in a collection of short stories eventually released about BookWorld. I realize the author enjoys breaking new ground and entering new worlds, as it were, with each volume, but these places could all serve as the settings for many more entertaining stories or tales, and collections of short stories flushing them out some more is something he could always come back to later.
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Jan 10, 2013 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, i didn't guess where Fforde was going to take this one. I figured after going further into the Bookworld with the "Lost in a Good Book' that he would spend more time in the real world this time around. Man was i wrong! "The Well of Lost Plots" took place almost entirely in Bookworld with only brief forays into the outside "reality."

This was mostly fun. It felt for most of the book like being inside the literary equivalent of Toon Town from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Fantastic references to...more

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Oct 21, 2008 Bella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Bookworms

Tis awesome so far. A truly marvelous plotline, with amazing contraptions thrown in. Ingenious.

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Jul 19, 2008 Honor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Writers and other book nerds.

I seem somewhat doomed to find series via a book somewhere in the middle. I'm sure it happens to everyone, but it -feels- like it happens to me a bit more often.

So... Except for people who find it accidentally, who'd read a review of this book? Likely someone who's interested in perhaps reading it... Who, I'd guess, would be someone who's already read the first two. So, this review's probably useless. None the less....

This book (as I'm sure is true for the rest of the series) is meant as somethi...more I seem somewhat doomed to find series via a book somewhere in the middle. I'm sure it happens to everyone, but it -feels- like it happens to me a bit more often.

So... Except for people who find it accidentally, who'd read a review of this book? Likely someone who's interested in perhaps reading it... Who, I'd guess, would be someone who's already read the first two. So, this review's probably useless. None the less....

This book (as I'm sure is true for the rest of the series) is meant as something of a reader's book... Not casual, "I read two or three novels a year" readers... But Readers. If I could italicize or use bold face here, I would. By extension, since I imagine so many decent writers are Readers, it's also meant to be a Writer's book.

It's filled with inside jokes about plot development, scene construction, dialog conventions, exposition, character development, and so on.

Since it also takes place in "the book world" - the alternate dimension that fictional characters inhabit both while working and while "off duty" - there is also -loads- of business, name dropping, and inside jokery about other books.

The problem with this is that... Well... Have you ever been playing around with a group of friends who all saw the same film or read the same book as yourself, and all felt somewhat similar about it, and you go off on this big long tear about the possible interaction of the characters and what might have been and how -hilarious- that might have been? And, since you were in that group, and high on laughter, in that special way that laughter has of making everything else seem a little more funny... By the end of it, you're all in tears, laughing at just about -anything- but... If you showed it to a stranger, or could even view it yourself a month later without the benefit of having been there, it might not be nearly so compelling.

So... I felt that a lot of the references to other books were a bit... Overdone. The quick references in passing, I enjoyed very much. a few lines with Rudyard Kipling's Painted Jaguar in the elevator... Quite nice. Bits of conversation between Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedick were simply brilliant in the authenticity they carried over. But, for me, the anger management session with all the characters from Wuthering Heights, working through their seething hatred of Heathcliffe just seemed to drag on, and on, and on...

All told, I'm happy I read it, and I will read the others when the opportunity arises... I just wish the author would keep the inside jokes quick and to the point.(less)

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Dec 22, 2008 Angela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely amazing. I'm convinced that Fforde is one of the most brilliant authors writing fiction today.

The Well of Lost Plots, rather than being more of the same from the world of Thursday Next and Jurisfiction, is something fresh, still original, never boring, and simply... fabulous. I adore this series for so many reasons... not the least of which being that it, much like Harry Potter or Abarat, is too often viewed as a children's book when it (and the others) are really nothing of the sort....more

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May 31, 2008 Gigi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

This book in the series has a lot more side stories and even more creative ideas which sometimes interrupted the flow of the story for me. It took a little more work to read as I had to remember quite a few different books and their plots which are referenced. But overall I really enjoyed it and the ideas that Fforde comes up with are so entertaining that it is fun just reading some passages.

One of the most entertaining of these passages was Lady Cavendish describing the "had had" and "that that...more

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May 23, 2008 Lisa Vegan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: almost anyone who enjoys humor, mysteries, sci-fi, fantasy, the English language, and books

Shelves: mystery, reviewed, fiction, speculative-fiction, novel, books-about-books, gr-groups-buddies

I slogged through most of the first fifth or so of this book; I preferred Thursday in her “real” world of the first two books. I was concerned that this third book wouldn’t be as enjoyable as I’d expected it would be. I ended up loving it though, and laughed as much as I did while reading the first two books, and cared as much about Thursday and certain other characters as much as well.

This book was kind of all over the place more than the first two books in the series, but there were so many wo...more

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Dec 29, 2008 Kallierose rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Inventive and unusual, these books are a blast. Thursday is a wonderful character, and everyone around her is just as much fun, from Spike (the vampire slayer) to Pickwick the dodo.

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Jan 04, 2008 Skylar Burris rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, fantasy

In this third installment of the Thursday Next literary mystery series, our agent finds herself working for Jurisfiction in the Book World, residing in one of the unpublished novels to be found in the Well of Lost Plots. Fforde creates a clever fantasy world and uses numerous literary puns, which make The Well of Lost Plots worth reading. The story itself, however, is not really gripping, and Thursday's character has never seemed well developed or "real" to me. I keep reading this series because...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Stewie's Mom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: september-2011, november-2012

I loved, love, loved this book. I mean, really loved this book. I didn't remember the first or the second books in this series being quite so witty and funny. I really enjoyed the way Mr. Fforde writes and I think Thursday may well be my new favorite character. I wanted to go back and re-read the first two books in the series to see if I missed something. This book was so funny and I loved the way the chapters began with an absurd news article or an insight of Thursday's thoughts via her journal...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Giuseppe D rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Terzo libro della saga di Thursday Next e finora il pi�� scarso pur offrendo comunque un notevole intrattenimento. Jasper si conferma nella genialit�� delle sue idee( ad esempio i mispeling vyrus, vicino ai quali �� possibile che una carota si trasformi in un pappagallo, da carrot a parrot) e di questo mondo parallelo in cui si pu�� saltare dentro ai libri e ogni personaggio prende vita. Thursday ora si trova nascosta nel pozzo delle trame perdute ed �� un agente della Jurisfiction, la polizia d...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Michelle added it · review of another edition

The Well of Lost Plots continues the tongue-in-cheek adventures of Thursday Next and her foray into the world of Jurisfiction. This time, she is fully immersed in the book world, hiding from Golaith Corporation and the Hades family while she regains her strength and nurtures her growing belly. Next has lost none of her feistiness though, which means that hijinks ensue as she uncovers an insidious plot designed to change the book world forever.

More so than the previous two novels, The Well of Los...more The Well of Lost Plots continues the tongue-in-cheek adventures of Thursday Next and her foray into the world of Jurisfiction. This time, she is fully immersed in the book world, hiding from Golaith Corporation and the Hades family while she regains her strength and nurtures her growing belly. Next has lost none of her feistiness though, which means that hijinks ensue as she uncovers an insidious plot designed to change the book world forever.

More so than the previous two novels, The Well of Lost Plots offers pure enjoyment for true bibliophiles. The jumps into various books, a trial held by the King and Queen of Hearts, the methodology in which novels are "written" is truly ingenious and absolutely hilarious. There is so much to love, whether it is seeing the inner workings of Wuthering Heights, the passing mentions of high literature, or the darker nature of children's novels. As I was listening at work, as always, this got me in trouble several times as I had to stop myself from laughing out loud in a completely silent and studious office setting.

The story does tie the first two books together quite nicely but does it in such a way that new readers should have very little difficulty picking up the key plot lines. For those readers who are continuing the story, Mr. Fforde explains these previous key plot points without being redundant or dragging down the current plot. Better yet, Mr. Fforde is able to continue to surprise and engage the reader in such a way that the reader cannot wait for more adventures.

What continues to amaze and delight me is how well this story translates to audio productions. If one didn't know any better, one would suspect that Mr. Fforde wrote them with audiobooks in mind. The entire scene with the "Misspelling Virus" is supremely effective as the characters do battle with this insidious virus that threatens the plot continuity of any given novel. Audibly, it was a powerful scene; the comedy really shines as a result of the mispronunciations that occur because of the virus. Visually, the reader misses those mispronunciations and must glean them for himself; it is just not as effective a medium to portray the humor in that scene. There are many other scenes - asides, sentences or even simple descriptions, that are much more powerful when heard rather than read, for which it is well worth experiencing at least one of these stories audibly to hear the difference.

Elizabeth Sastre is the third narrator for this series. Her voice is surprisingly similar to the previous two narrators, Susan Duerdin and Emily Gray, which helps with the continuity of the story. There were some interesting differences though, especially with her pronunciation of various names of characters and places. Ms. Sastre was not quite as good at differentiating between the characters as Ms. Duerdin, but she was much better than Ms. Gray, especially among the male voices. Where she excels above the other two, however, is in her ability to capture the sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek portions of the story with the earnestness the character of Thursday Next requires.

Mr. Fforde's words with Ms. Sastre's performance combines to make The Well of Lost Plots my favorite Thursday Next novel yet. It continues the brilliantly original and funny story of Thursday Next without growing stale or rehashing previously used jokes. Ms. Sastre is an excellent voice for Thursday, matter-of-fact and honest in her delivery. I had my doubts with the second novel in the series, but after reading this third one, I am definitely ready to continue the series.
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Jul 08, 2010 Minh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: speculativefiction

Fast forwarding on a little from the events of book 2, we now find Thursday on vacation as part of the Character Exchange Program, in a little read novel in the Well of Lost Plots. As per usual Landon is still eradicated and Archeron's sister is making things worse by erasing Thursday's memories of him.

To be honest I was more than a little lost reading the novel, there were so many sub-plots going on at once that when I put it all together it seems a bit of a mess, but a fun one! I'd actually p...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Elderberrywine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library

This series is really becoming more and more delightful. No summary of the plot would make a lick of sense, but suffice it to say, we lost the glorious Miss Havisham this time around; lost in an automobile race with Mr. Toad (who, it must be said, was terribly cut up about it).

But then the chapter was called The Final Bow, and so I have hopes that perhaps it wasn't quite as final?

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fix...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love these books. This one is a little too long, but I forgive Fforde for thinking his ideas deserve extra pages. He's hilarious as ever in this, the 3rd Thursday Next novel. Thursday is living in an unpublished novel of questionable quality, "Caversham Heights," in order to relax into her pregnancy and plan her attempt to rescue her eradicated husband, Landen. But, because she's Thursday, 'relax' means something different. This books sees her become a Jurisfiction agent, which is essentially...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: séries-en-cours

• Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Le Puits des Histoires Perdues?

"Après "l'Affaire Jane Eyre" et "Délivrez-Moi", je continue avec délectation la série des "Thursday Next" de Jasper Fforde en laissant juste assez de temps entre chaque livre pour savourer mais pas assez pour tout oublier de ce monde farfelu."

• Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...

"Thursday a beaucoup de problèmes à résoudre dans le monde réel mais a aussi grand besoin de repos et de protection....more

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Apr 10, 2011 Angela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossed-or-otherwise-set-free, 2006

In this delicious sequel to The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, Fforde's redoubtable (and now throwing-up-pregnant) heroine Thursday Next once again does battle with philistine bibliophobes, taking a furlough from her duties as a SpecOps Literary Detective to vacation in the Well of Lost Plots, the 26 noisome sub-basements of the Great Library. Pursued by her memory-modifying nemesis Aornis Hades, Thursday joins Jurisfiction's Character Exchange Program, filling in for "Mary," sidekick to t...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Mjohnson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The best in the series so far, in my opinion. This one is a book-lover's dream. Here, Thursday is needing to hide out and protect her unborn baby (fathered by someone who never existed--but will exist again, because I've read the 5th book). So she decides to retreat into a book. Literally. And in The Well of Lost Plots we get an ever greater understanding of how the book world works. Every character starts out as a generic, with no distinguishing features, but through education (even college), w...more The best in the series so far, in my opinion. This one is a book-lover's dream. Here, Thursday is needing to hide out and protect her unborn baby (fathered by someone who never existed--but will exist again, because I've read the 5th book). So she decides to retreat into a book. Literally. And in The Well of Lost Plots we get an ever greater understanding of how the book world works. Every character starts out as a generic, with no distinguishing features, but through education (even college), we see them develop from D-class to grade-A characters (Jane Eyre and the Gatsbys are As, non-speaking characters are generally D-class). One of the greatest insults to hurled at a C-grade or higher range from "One-dimensional," "cardboard," or (gasp!) "Predictable!"

Thursday, still a Jurisfiction agent-in-training, takes part in the Character Exchange program, so developed to keep characters from getting bored with their repetitive roles and "page jumping" into other books. She still reports to Miss Havisham, and narrowly escapes with her life while routing out rogue jurisfiction agents who would see havoc wrought to the entire way of books as we know it.

We also understand better how the Great Library works: published works residing in the 26 floors above ground, and unpublished residing in the 26 (one floor for each letter of the alphabet) below, also known as the basement, or The Well of Lost Plots. Here, stories are built, or, if considered too terrible for publication, dismantled, with scenes and characters being auctioned off for use in other works, or dismantled letter by letter.

The book is again full of Fforde's humor and wit as the book world is both explained and, by turns, very cleverly mocked. It's my favorite in the series, and I will try and try again to get certain members of my book club to read it. One favorite scene is of the "Bookies," the award ceremonies for books, where all characters from all the books (and in this special case, even the generics from unpublished works) attend and receive awards like "most troubled character in a male role," or "favorite heroine." And if you ever read a book where all the characters fall flat and lifeless, most likely it's because you chanced upon it during "the Bookies," and all the characters were away from their books.(less)

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Jan 24, 2011 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Again, funny in the completely loopy and unpredictable sense as well as in the highly literary sense. One thing this series has going for it, which sets it apart from other fantasy series such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, is that the structural framework is different in each book, rather than being repeated again and again. The books could stand on their own, if the world(s) Fforde created weren't so detailed, strange, and fast-paced. Also, Thursday's character development occurs mostly...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Lis Carey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: f-sf

Having escaped her assorted enemies for the moment, Thursday Next is hiding out in an unpublished novel in the Well of Lost Plots as part of the character exchange program. She's still pregnant, and her husband, Landen Parke-Laine, is still eradicated, due to the evil machinations of Goliath Corp. Acheron Hades is dead, but Acheron's sister Aornis is still after Thursday, seeking revenge for her brother's death. She also still has to stand trial on a charge of Fiction Infraction, due to her unau...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Karissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the third book in the Thursday Next series. Currently there are five books in this series with the sixth book, "One of Our Thursdays is Missing", due out in March 2011. This was a great addition to the series and was as witty, entertaining, and crazy as all of the previous books have been. Fforde is an incredibly creative writer that creates an intricate plot, bizarre characters, and a book full of ironic humor. I actually listened to this on audio book which I highly recommend. I enjoye...more This is the third book in the Thursday Next series. Currently there are five books in this series with the sixth book, "One of Our Thursdays is Missing", due out in March 2011. This was a great addition to the series and was as witty, entertaining, and crazy as all of the previous books have been. Fforde is an incredibly creative writer that creates an intricate plot, bizarre characters, and a book full of ironic humor. I actually listened to this on audio book which I highly recommend. I enjoyed listening to this on audio book even more than reading it (which I had done with the previous two books), the audio production is extremely well done.

In this book Thursday has decided to take a breather from being chased by Spec Ops and Goliath Corporation; she is going to take a year off and live in the world of literature...literally. Specifically she has decided to find Refuge in a horrible book that is in the Well of Lost Plots. Naturally everything gets more complicated from there. Thursday finds that the book she is living in is up for demolition, that she has been apprenticed to Miss Havisham from Great Expectation for Jurisfiction training, someone may be out to kill her, her memories are infested with Acheron's sister who is trying to make her forget her eradicated husband Landon, and she will be living with two generic characters who have yet to form any personalities. As events comes to a head, Next will find that the very fate of all books may be in her hands.

This was another great installment in this series. You meet a lot of wonderful new and quirky characters; you learn a ton more about Thursday and the time she spent in the war...it gives you a lot more incite into her character. The pace of the plot is relentless and you never know what crazy book related thing Thursday will be dealing with next. Whether it is Grammacites (Monsters that alter text) or a Spalling Viruse (an extremely contagious virus that misspells everything); everything you run into is interesting, unexpected, and exciting.

This whole book is spent in the literature world and mainly deals with Thursday's training as a Jurisfiction agent. The plot points where Thursday is trying to find her husband Landon do get advanced a bit too, but are not the main focus of this novel.

I just loved this book and have no complaints. It was smart, funny, creative, well-written, full of action, and impossible to put down. As with previous books the main story points in this book were wrapped up nicely, but there are some over-arcing story points that continue to be advanced yet remain unresolved.

Overall my new favorite book in this series. I can't wait to see what the future books have in store for Thursday. I recommend reading this book if you like books with humor, action, and unexpected quirkiness. At points this series reminds a bit of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, but mostly this is one of those series that you have to just read because it is kind of hard to explain. (less)

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Aug 23, 2010 Danielle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, sci-fi, suspense-mystery

I'm really getting into this series now, though I initially found it slightly difficult to connect with. One of the downsides to now being sure I like this series is trying to recommend it to others. When the question "What is it about?" invariably comes up, I end up sputtering out something like "another dimension where it is 1986, time travel is normal, the main method of air travel is zeppelin, and people can jump in and out of books." It makes me cringe inwardly to be spewing out seemingly n...more

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May 02, 2010 Karin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: alternative-history, mystery, audio-edition, adult-fiction, funny, clever, quirky, bookworld-realworld-crossover, fantasy, borrowed-from-the-library

Thursday is still reeling from the eradication of her husband, Landon Park Lane, and she’s taken some time off from the “real world” (her alternative Britain) to hide out from the Goliath Corporation, the Chronoguard, and Spec Ops. She’s hiding in an unpublished manuscript called Cavisham Heights as part of the character exchange program through Jurisfiction. While she’s there, Thursday continues her Jurisfiction apprenticeship with Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations), eventually passing her...more

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The Escapists: A ...: * Thursday Next (Series Read 3)	17	20	Apr 07, 2012 07:41am

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Jasper Fforde is a novelist living in Wales. He is the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England, whose signature used to appear on sterling banknotes, and is cousin of Desmond Fforde, married with the author Katie Fforde. His early career was spent as a focus puller in the film industry, where he worked on a number of films including Quills, GoldenEye, and Entrap...more

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