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First Among Sequels (Thursday Next #5)

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 12,957 ratings · 1,098 reviews

Beloved for his prodigious imagination, his satirical gifts, his literate humor, and sheer silliness, Jasper Fforde has delighted book lovers since Thursday Next first appeared in The Eyre Affair, a genre send-up hailed as an instant classic. Since the no-nonsense literary detective from Swindon made her debut, literature has never been quite the same. Neither have nursery...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published June 2008 by Hodder (first published July 24th 2007)

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Jul 23, 2007 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thursday's back, in the first installment of her second four-book series; how I'd missed her.

Familiar ground is less familiar than I might have expected. It's 14 years later, SpecOps has been disbanded, and Thursday is working at a carpet company while England's love of reading (so prominent and charming in the world of the first series) has plummeted so far that bookstores no longer sell books and reality TV has resorted to titles like Samaritan Kidney Swap. It takes a couple of chapters for on...more Thursday's back, in the first installment of her second four-book series; how I'd missed her.

Familiar ground is less familiar than I might have expected. It's 14 years later, SpecOps has been disbanded, and Thursday is working at a carpet company while England's love of reading (so prominent and charming in the world of the first series) has plummeted so far that bookstores no longer sell books and reality TV has resorted to titles like Samaritan Kidney Swap. It takes a couple of chapters for one to get a footing.

All the old characters make an appearance, though, albeit usually brief ones, and the new characters (in particular, Thursday's kids) are engaging. Probably the ones with the most page-time are still Thursday... but the fictional Thursdays from the books written based on her experiences. This, you might imagine, gets even more meta than usual, as Thursday in the Bookworld mucks about with the first four books we've already read (and one we haven't).

As usual, the plot threads are myriad. The main plot involves a drastic plan to raise Outlander reading rates by turning the classics into interactive reality TV, but there are also bits about Felix8's return, Aornis's imprisonment, the evaluation and training of potential new Jurisfiction agents, and a really dangerous cheese.

Still, it's not my favorite Thursday book by a long shot. For one thing, it feels rushed (as it probably should, since it was written in seven months), which might explain why the Hodder first edition is missing all footnotes; in another book, that might not necessarily be a real problem, narrative-wise, but when Next communicates with Bookworld inhabititants via footnoterphone, we're literally missing half the conversation. For another, the dangling plot points feel more dangly than in previous books, probably because Fforde knows he has three more books in which to tie them to something, but it does hurt the novel's feel as a finished work unto itself.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but it's clearly not Fforde's best. And now that he's apparently committed to Thursday for his next three novels, I find myself craving another Nursery Crime book.(less)

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Feb 25, 2009 Esther rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Jasper Fforde junkies

Actually, more like 1.5 stars -- somewhere between "didn't like it" and "OK". I certainly didn't hate it, but I didn't derive much pleasure from reading it, either.

While I enjoyed the prior four books in this series, this one fell short. Much of the cleverness that made Fforde's other books so delightful has been sucked out of this book.

The "that that that that" bit in Well of Lost Plots was a bit of brilliance. This book's brilliance, unfortunately, has been reduced to something comparable to a...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Tripp rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I have ever read a more raucous and joyful ode to reading than Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, then I have long forgotten it. Set in a fantastical alternate Britain, the series heroine is the titular Next who is a member of the Literary Detectives, a government organization that combats book crime, such as, say, the unlawful editing of books. How can such events occur? Well as it happens, what is written in books exists in it own dimension and if you were to enter that dimension, you co...more If I have ever read a more raucous and joyful ode to reading than Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, then I have long forgotten it. Set in a fantastical alternate Britain, the series heroine is the titular Next who is a member of the Literary Detectives, a government organization that combats book crime, such as, say, the unlawful editing of books. How can such events occur? Well as it happens, what is written in books exists in it own dimension and if you were to enter that dimension, you could say, leech all the comedy out of the Thomas Hardy books and make them terrible tragedies, as some nasty did in these books.

Did that last bit make you chuckle or leave you confused? If it is the former, these books are for you. In addition to being entirely about books and reading, these stories are marked by an unrelenting tide of jokes. I can think of few books that I want to read that I can also call "madcap," but this is certainly one. One scene features a Beatrix Potter character conversing with a Ming the Merciless clone, over tea. It is a mark of Fforde's skill as a writer in that he can be so incredibly silly, while also sucking you into the (often nonsensical) story.

His latest book in the series, Thursday Next, First Among Sequels, may be his most enjoyable yet. Flinging from one crisis to another, Next deals with (as usual) threats to the BookWorld, the universe, declining read rates, her family and to her pet Dodo (genetically re-engineered, wouldn't you know). The pacing is among the most relentless in this volume, so that if one joke or encounter leaves you a bit dry, you will soon find another.

While I won't stoop to spoiling, I will say that this is a series that can read out of order if you so chose. Yes, certain personages fates will be known to you, but like as not, they have changed in bizarre ways, so that you will be surprised nonetheless. The fun here is in Fforde's seemingly bottomless invention and literary referencing. If you are an inveterate reader, then you need to try these books.(less)

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May 19, 2008 Rachel C. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Karen, David, other Fforde fans out there

Shelves: jane-austen, narrative-devices, lit-permutations, books-about-books

Maybe it's because I haven't seen Thursday Next in a long time, but I really enjoyed this book!

I loved the scenes with her family - seeing son Friday as a grunty teenager whose only interest is playing guitar for his garage band, The Gobshites. (His parents are worried because he's slated to save the world 756 times, but is already three years behind schedule on his ChronoGuard career.) The scene about Thursday's daughter Jenny almost made me cry.

The plot is intricate and hard to follow, but if...more Maybe it's because I haven't seen Thursday Next in a long time, but I really enjoyed this book!

I loved the scenes with her family - seeing son Friday as a grunty teenager whose only interest is playing guitar for his garage band, The Gobshites. (His parents are worried because he's slated to save the world 756 times, but is already three years behind schedule on his ChronoGuard career.) The scene about Thursday's daughter Jenny almost made me cry.

The plot is intricate and hard to follow, but if you just go with it in a down-the-rabbit-hole kind of way, it's quite a ride. That Thursday has her own fictional self (Thursday5 from "The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco") as a cadet trainee is awesome.

I still think "Eyre Affair" stands alone at the pinnacle of Fforde's work, but I was glad to be once again immersed in Thursday Next's world. Fforde just plain loves books and it's infectious.

Some favorite passages below:

A "dirty" bomb:

It's a tightly packed mass of inappropriate plot devices, explicit suggestions and sexual scenes of an expressly gratuitous nature. The 'dirty' elements of the bomb fly apart at a preset time and attach themselves to any unshielded prose. Given the target, it has the potential for untold damage. A well-placed dirty bomb could scatter poorly described fornication all across drab theological debate or drop a wholly unwarranted scene of a sexually exploitative nature right into the middle of 'Mrs. Dalloway.'

A strong cheese:

Machynlleth Wedi Marw... It'll bring you up in a rash just by looking at it. Denser than enriched plutonium, two grams can season enough macaroni and cheese for eight hundred men. The smell alone will corrode iron. A concentration of only seventeen parts per million will bring on nausea and unconsciousness within twenty seconds. Our chief taster ate a half ounce by accident and was dead to the world for six hours. Open only out of doors, and even then only with a doctor's certificate and well away from populated areas. It's not really a cheese for eating - it's more for encasing in concrete and dumping in the ocean a long way from civilization.

Schrodinger's Night Fever principle:

F: "It's simple. If you go to see 'Saturday Night Fever' expecting it to be good, it's a corker. However, if you go expecting it to be a crock of shit, it's that, too. Thus 'Saturday Night Fever' can exist in two mutually opposing states at the very same time, yet only by the weight of our expectations. From this principle we can deduce that any opposing states can be governed by human expectation - even, as in the case of retro-deficit-engineering, the present use of a future technology."
L: "I think I understand that. Does it work with any John Travolta movie?"
F: "Only the artistically ambiguous ones such as 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Face/Off.' 'Battlefield Earth' doesn't work, because it's a stinker no matter how much you think you're going to like it, and 'Get Shorty' doesn't work either, because you'd be hard-pressed not to enjoy it, irrespective of any preconceived notions."

(less)

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May 25, 2008 Kerrin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Probably my least favorite of the Thursday Next series so far. It seemed less coherent and more bogged down with explanation than the rest. While there were a few exciting parts near the end, I did not enjoy it as much as The Eyre Affair and others in the series.

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Feb 24, 2008 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have loved this quirky series, but in all honesty, I think this book had too many subplots and not enough plot to sustain the interest of anyone but a fan. Some great satire, though--I loved the reality TV shows made out of books.

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Apr 12, 2010 MissJessie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Thursday Next fans

Shelves: zz-2009-read, alternate-history, british-fiction, fiction, social-satire, strong-women, young-adult, zz-2010-read, wlt-2012-gift

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 10, 2008 Brownbetty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who like words put together to form stories

Jasper Fforde reminds me of a Douglas Adams who came from a happier home. (I have no idea what Adams' home life was like, but for the sake of analogy, humour me.) His humour is less biting, but just as madcap, his characters are kinder, and easier to like, but the surreality is, I think, just as strong, and listen to this nice bit of language on pianos: "Composed of 550lbs of iron, wood, strings, and felt, the 88-key instrument is capable of the most subtle of melodies, yet stored up in the te...more

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Sep 12, 2007 Eviltwinjen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Thursday Next fans...really not a stand-alone.

Shelves: fiction

Ah, Jasper Fforde. I missed you while you were writing the Nursery Crimes books, in which I just couldn't work up much interest. Thursday is what makes these books work--she's loveably contradictory and hard-assed, but also a doting mum who can't stop calling her son "Sweetpea", even when he's an adult version of himself from the future who's threatening to replace her actual (lazy no-good) teenaged son in the present.

In First Among Sequels, the beginning of a new quartet (featuring a now middl...more

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Aug 31, 2007 Leigh Wisniewski rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Seriously, Jasper Fforde. This has gone far enough.

I thought The Eyre Affair was pretty ingenious. As the series continued, the books seemed to start to fall into a hole, but as the holder of an English B.A. and M.A., I was sticking with Fforde for his clever puns, literary allusions, Shakespeare references, and other literature-related nonsense. I was particularly fond of The Well of Lost Plots, not because it was terribly good, but as a writer I appreciated the fantasy of Bookworld and how st...more

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May 31, 2007 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I managed to acquire an advanced copy of the book, the 5th in the Thursday Next series.

I love the series, but I think this is the weakest of them. It's not as compulsively can't-put-it-down readable as the rest of the series, and there are way too many apparently disparate plot threads, which, granted, all come together in the end, but make the novel hard to follow early on. It's also not nearly as suspenseful as the earlier novels: none of the conflicts seem all that urgent, there's less death...more

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Feb 25, 2009 Sandi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, fantasy, funny-stuff

According to the little pop-up under each star, two stars means "it was okay". And, that's about all I can say about this 5th installment in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. It was in serious trouble when 75 of the first 100 pages were spent in a pointless jaunt through Book World that seemed to be there only to provide exposition that fans of the series don't really need. Fforde throws out a lot of potential story lines and doesn't follow through with most of them. Absolutely nothing comes...more

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Jul 08, 2008 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jasper Fforde is brilliant. Where will the man's imagination take us next?! This series is an incredibly creative literary fantasy that involves the main character, Thursday Next, jumping between the BookWorld and the Outland (that's where we live).

She solves mysteries and puts literary crimes to rights. We learn all sorts of things along the way about how books are actually created and transferred to the author and the reader.

If you love books and don't mind a few paradoxes, read these, pleas...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Myfavoritegeorgie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Thursday Next fans

Shelves: alternate-history, british-fiction, fiction, social-satire, strong-women, young-adult, z2009-read, and, z2010-read, 2010-read, british, zz2009-read

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 30, 2009 Gayle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I gave myself a breather between this one and Something Rotten, and a good thing I did. I found this one a lot more readable. Thursday is employed by Acme Carpets, which is a front for her Spec Ops group (Spike, Stig, et al), which is a front for her Jurisfiction activities. As Thursday tries to work with assorted versions of herself, she tackles issues of falling Outworld readership, Goliath Corporation's upcoming Austen Rover, and her dead Uncle Mycroft, who has been making ghostly appearances...more

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Dec 11, 2008 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

My sentiments on reading First Among Sequels was very similar to that when I read the Gaiman/Pratchett collaboration, Good Omens. Fforde's done a great job in the earlier books in the Thursday Next series, creating this crazy alternative universe called the BookWorld and how books are we know it aren't products of an author's imagination, but are really the result of feats of BookWorld engineering. Some bits of the book are just brilliant - Superreaders, what happens when a novel like Pride and...more

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Mar 21, 2013 George rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I inadvertently skipped books 2-4 in the series, but thanks to the prominence of time travel in this book and Fforde's explanations, I didn't feel particular lost. From time to time, I seem to fall out of the rhythm of reading and it takes the right book to bring me back in. I tried picking up a Saramago that's been sitting on my shelf for a while, but after taking almost a month to get barely halfway through, I decided to switch gears, and what better way to do it than the Thursday Next series,...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love this series so much. I’ve shamefully waited almost three year to read the fifth book, but luckily I wasn’t disappointed. Fourteen years have passed since the end of the 4th book and Thursday has adjusted to her life as a wife and mother, though she may not have given up her work as a literary detective quite as completely as she led her husband to believe. Thursday Next, a literary detective, lives with her husband and kids, Friday, Tuesday and Jenny.

I am constantly astounded by Fforde’s...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Ron Arden rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read the first Thursday Next novel earlier this year and loved it. This is the 5th and while I loved the premise and ideas, the writing was not as good.

The beginning was great as Thursday is now married with 2 (3?) kids; you'll find that out later in the book. The Spec Ops groups were disbanded, so she is working for ACME Carpets, which is an actual carpet company, but many of the old Spec Ops agents work there. She is still moonlighting as a Spec Ops agent, because they didn't really disband...more I read the first Thursday Next novel earlier this year and loved it. This is the 5th and while I loved the premise and ideas, the writing was not as good.

The beginning was great as Thursday is now married with 2 (3?) kids; you'll find that out later in the book. The Spec Ops groups were disbanded, so she is working for ACME Carpets, which is an actual carpet company, but many of the old Spec Ops agents work there. She is still moonlighting as a Spec Ops agent, because they didn't really disband. Also her real job is working in Jurisfiction, which is a detective/police force inside the world of fiction. I just love this whole idea.

Thursday is the only real person in Jurisfiction. I love that in this book she meets the fictional versions of herself from the first four books and a badly received 5th book. The characters become her apprentices and become major elements in the plot.

Thursday has three kids named Friday, Tuesday and Jenny. What is with the days of the week? Her Jurisfiction work and the real world start interacting with people and characters moving back and forth between the two worlds. Her late uncle appears to her as a ghost, but doesn't realize he's dead. In true British fashion, he says "What a bother." It turns out that her uncle created a formula that has to do with time travel and Friday seems to become the head of the Chronguard, which is involved in managing time.

A lot of the middle of the book is very slow and I found somewhat boring. The last 100 or so pages are where all the bits and pieces come together as the uncle, the son, the bad megacorporation and Thursday all wind up in a major brouhaha over time and books.

There are other hysterical bits, like the PM of the UK trying to eliminate the Stupidity Excess in the country by creating something so stupid that it mops up all the excess stupidity. He says they could become an importer of other country's stupidity and do the world a service. There is a lot of great ideas and humor in this book, but a lot of the writing could and should be better. (less)

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Jul 11, 2012 Kerri rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’ve read all the books in the Thursday Next series up to this one and the first is still by far my favorite. They are all entertaining, but the plot seems to become less and less important with each go-around. I wasn’t sure what this one was exactly about until maybe three-quarters of the way through. Nonetheless, the ideas are clever. I found myself asking again and again, “How does he come up with this stuff?”

This time Thursday lives in a world with a stupidity surplus and political parties...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jasper Fforde is crazy and amazing, and I think you might be able to plot his crazy/amazing relationship and find that the crazier he is, the more amazing the book turns out to be. And as healthy as it was for him to branch out to his other series, the Thursday Next books give Jasper the best platform to jump from idea to idea. Thursday Next lives in an alternate England, where cheese must be smuggled, extinct species have been cloned back into existence, time travelling is a profession, and it...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thursday is in her 50s, and Friday is 16 with a mathematical genius younger sister, Tuesday. While pretending to work an ordinary job providing quality floor coverings to the population of Swindon, she continues to police the BookWorld. There's a plot involving a serial killer amongst the books which is rather a side consideration. The real drama is that the Generic who was developed to play Thursday in her books 1-4 is a sex-and-violence obsessed maniac, while book 5's Thursday is a milquetoast...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Cathy Cole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First Line: The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning.

I stumbled across the first book in this series on a table at a local Barnes & Noble. The only reason why I bought The Eyre Affair was that I am a Jane Eyre fan-- and the plot sounded like fun. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! There is a reason why the books in this series are consistently nominated for (or winners of) the Dilys Award-- they are so filled wit...more First Line: The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning.

I stumbled across the first book in this series on a table at a local Barnes & Noble. The only reason why I bought The Eyre Affair was that I am a Jane Eyre fan-- and the plot sounded like fun. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! There is a reason why the books in this series are consistently nominated for (or winners of) the Dilys Award-- they are so filled with word play, social commentary, satire, and literary allusions that they are just plain fun to sell. I know that I've waved more than my fair share of copies of The Eyre Affair in the faces of people who asked me what I thought they should read.

In Thursday Next, First Among Sequels, it's been fourteen years since the action in Something Rotten. Thursday and her husband have several children, including a very cranky sixteen-year-old named Friday. Thursday puts on her uniform and shows up for work at Carpet World in Swindon every day. But things are not quite as they seem. (If you've read Fforde, you know that last sentence is a given.)

Sherlock Holmes dies at Rheinback Falls, and the series comes to a screeching halt. Miss Marple dies in a car accident, and she's stuck her nose into her last investigation. When strange things begin to happen to Thursday's fictional self, she knows what's going on: there's a serial killer loose in the Bookworld. To top it all off, Goliath Corporation -- which has been strangely silent the past few years-- wants to deregulate book travel. It's time for the real Thursday to stand up, to stop making illegal cheese buys, and to save the Bookworld once again!

When I began reading these books, I was afraid that half the puns, other word play, and references to things British were zooming over my head at the speed of light. Now that I'm a bit older, I've mellowed. Yes, I may very well be missing some bits, but I don't care-- I love all the bits that I do understand.

These books always have an interesting storyline-- like the one in which the serial killer resides-- but there is so much more going on. Reading Fforde's take on modern society (such as the stupidity surplus) is so true that it's funny, and I laugh even though I have a good idea that I shouldn't. If you tire of social commentary, puns, satire, the twists and turns of the plot... and you just want a good laugh, reading the scene of Thursday's illegal cheese buy is out-and-out hilarious. Fforde's world is even facing declining book sales just like our world.

For those of you who have hesitated to read these books because you believe you're just not well-informed about classics like Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, I urge you to reconsider. There's been a book or two that's been included in the series that I'm not well-acquainted with, but it really didn't make a difference. More than anything else, reading these books is all about FUN. That's "fun" in capitals-- something that we all could use a good strong dose of.(less)

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Jun 18, 2011 Elliott Walsh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the wake of reading the most recent Thursday Next novel, 'One of Our Thursdays is Missing', I found myself reaching for this volume, and re-reading it, in doing so, I discovered that 'One of our Thursdays...' is actually a kind of re-boot of 'First Among Sequels'(TN-5).

This is interesting, because I hadn't realized that the practice was becoming commonplace, or could work so well, but I've noted it in the work of at least one other writer in my reading of late (John Scalzi's 'Zoe's Tale', as...more

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May 29, 2011 Marcia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

Two and a half stars. Years ago, I read and enjoyed the first four Thursday Next books, but this one is basically a mess from start to finish. I'm going to assume that the quality fell off quite a bit with this book, though it is possible they've been sloppily written all this time and I'm just noticing now. Fforde has a gift for satire, and occasionally he's spot on. If you were just reading a handful of pages at a time, this book would seem quite clever and fun. As a whole, however, it doesn't...more

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Jul 28, 2010 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, satire

I have NO idea why Fforde delights me so much in his Thursday Next series--possibly his juxtaposition of such a down-to-earth heroine with this OUTRAGEOUS world she inhabits!

This sequel to the main four books in the Next series (which I've already reviewed on goodreads), continues in the zany form of the other works. Thursday is now a woman in her 50's, married to Landon, with three (she thinks) children. SUPPOSEDLY she has given up all her literary detective work with SpecOps, but of course no...more

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Jun 16, 2010 Karin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It’s been fourteen years since we last touched base with Thursday Next. In that time her son, Friday, has become a sullen teenager who doesn’t seem at all likely to become a leader in the Chronoguard; her dodo, Pickwick, has lost all of her feathers; Landon has been (and remains!) reactualized; the Goliath Corporation is up to the same tricks (world market domination); and the fiction world is running amok. Thursday continues to work for Jurisfiction (on the sly), and she’s entangled in several...more

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Apr 21, 2010 Simcha Lazarus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

while I really enjoying First Among Sequels, I did have a bit of trouble getting into it in the beginning. I was a bit put off by the sixteen-year time jump as well as Thursday’s almost immediate trip to the Bookworld. Thursday’s adventures in the Bookworld aren’t my favorite parts of these books, as they feel too much like a factory tour in which I’m presented with one product after another, which are meant to dazzle me with their cleverness. This gets a bit tedious after a while and so it took...more

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Jan 30, 2010 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Love it. Love the whole series. Love the author. It's literary sci-fi, literary mystery, just plain literary at it's best. Awesomely clever. Time travel, ghosts, the end of the world (caused by the end of Time), a demon, Danverclones (creepy Mrs. Danvers from du Maurier's Rebecca, cloned into an army of thousands), a "dirty bomb" that if unleashed in an inter-genre war between Racy Novel and Feminist Literature, could "scatter poorly described fornication all across drab theological debate or dr...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Joanna Compton-Mys rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-partial-list

All I can say is that half the pleasure of reading Fforde's Thursday Next series is in ferreting out the myriad literary references slipped into the work. The fifth book in the series was no different in this respect, playing in fiction, poetry and the oral tradition.

This was a really fun read that plays with Thursday as both an "outlander" and a member of Jurisfiction, the fictional version of Spec Ops (So27) policing the fictional world's woes, uncannily like and unlike the real world. Set 14...more

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About Jasper Fforde

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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The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next #3)

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Quotes from First Among Sequels

“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.” — 419 people liked it

“Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.” — 252 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/963683.First_Among_Sequels?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327343625l/963683.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/963683.First_Among_Sequels?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde[/url]

First Among Sequels (Thursday Next #5)

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