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First Among Sequels

(Thursday Next #5)

Jasper Fforde (Goodreads Author)

4.01 · Rating details · 22,484 ratings · 1,523 reviews

Literary sleuth Thursday Next is out to save literature in the fifth installment of Jasper Fforde's wildly popular series

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 ...more

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Hardcover, 363 pages

Published July 24th 2007 by Viking Adult

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May 10, 2008 Brownbetty rated it really liked it · 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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Nov 05, 2016 BrokenTune rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

2.5*

‘Incredibly enough, reality TV has just got worse.’ ‘Is that possible?’ I asked. ‘Wasn’t Celebrity Trainee Pathologist the pits?’ I thought for a moment. ‘Actually, Whose Life Support Do We Switch Off ? was worse. Or maybe Sell Your Granny. Wow, the choice these days makes it all so tricky to decide.’
Bowden laughed. ‘I’ll agree that Granny lowered the bar for distasteful programme makers everywhere, but RTA-TV, never one to shirk from a challenge, have devised Samaritan Kidney Swap. Ten rena ...more

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Jul 23, 2007 Jack rated it really liked it · 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 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. ...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Esther rated it did not like it

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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Mar 12, 2008 Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, mystery, novel, speculative-fiction, books-about-books, reviewed, time-travel, goodreads-author, readbooks-male-author-or-illust

I was really scared to read this one because so many readers seem to dislike it, even those people who enjoyed the first four books in the series, and I didn’t want to feel disappointed. I’m not sure why so many readers don’t like this one. I was into it right from the start.

So what if this book isn’t plot heavy (but there is a story/plot!) – I love hanging out in this alternative world with Thursday and the other characters – I especially enjoyed the parts about the kids.

Fforde is unbelievably ...more

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Jan 12, 2014 Megan Baxter rated it really liked it

I have to say, I still enjoy these. I don't know that they are as shiny and new as when Jasper Fforde was a discovery, but I do enjoy them. I felt like the one before this was a bit muddy, if I remember correctly (it was a while ago), but First Among Sequels is a thoroughly fun addition to the Thursday Next series. I really never get tired of Fforde's voice. That's what it comes down to, in the end.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enfor ...more

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May 12, 2008 Kerrin rated it it was ok

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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Apr 14, 2018 Arnis rated it really liked it

Shelves: ha-s-2018-pages-read-challenge

https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/201...

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Jul 24, 2008 Tripp rated it really liked it

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 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. ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Stephen Richter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

Thursday Next is now in her 40s, has a slacker son named Friday who sleeps until noon is and is suppose to save the world in the future. Plus she is tasked to train Thursday 5 and Thursday 1-4, literary versions of herself all the while working for Acme Carpet Company, now a cover for Spec Ops. Jasper Fforde once again invents a wild tale of the literary world.

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Jul 22, 2007 Jenny rated it liked it

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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May 19, 2008 Rachel C. rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Karen, David, other Fforde fans out there

Shelves: jane-austen, narrative-devices, lit-permutations, books-about-books, pop-fic-scifi-fntsy

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 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."

...more

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Jun 27, 2011 K. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, own-it-hard-copy, 2016, setting-europe, audience-adult

Look, I like this series a lot. But there's a lot in this one that I find frustrating.
1. The fourteen year time skip between books. I'm really not a fan of time skips as a plot device, and jumping THAT FAR? No thank you.
2. (view spoiler)
3. Multiples of the same character.
3a. I mean, we have three different versions of the protagonist - Actual Thursday Next, Thursday N ...more

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Aug 24, 2007 Leigh Wisniewski rated it it was ok

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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Oct 30, 2015 Neil rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Whilst this book might be listed as №5 in the Thursday Next series, it is set 14 years after the previous book, so it is almost like a brand new series. The only trouble with that is that so much time is spent filling in the intervening happenings, and scene setting that the first half of the book is quite a slog of a read. There is a fair amount of repetition too.
So things have changed in this fictitious corner of England. Much of SpecOps has been disbanded, and Thursday now finds herself worki ...more

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Sep 01, 2008 Sandi rated it it was ok · 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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Oct 25, 2012 Louize rated it it was amazing

I love how Jasper Fforde stitched things together without a flaw.
It's just cockily satisfying how each question was answered in the most unexpected manner and timing. And his name choices were impeccable as ever.

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Jan 30, 2010 Julie rated it it was amazing

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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Oct 20, 2007 Oriana rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2008

One of the endorsements on the back of this book reads, Brainier silliness is hard to find, and I think that's the best encapsulation of Jasper Fforde I've yet to find. He really is the smart person's beach read, or some other such epithet.

This book made me think, though, that really really original artists can sometimes suffer for their singularity. I remember thinking this about Tom Robbins years ago, and it happens with visual artists and musicians too, I'd say. What I mean is that when some ...more

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May 01, 2014 Carmen rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Book-lovers

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, traditionally-published, he-says

This book is #5 in the Thursday Next series. Read the other books first! Not a stand-alone.

Thursday Next is retired from Special Ops. Now 52, married with three children: Friday, Tuesday, and Jenny, Thursday Next is working for Acme Carpets.

Except she's really not. Unknown to her darling husband, Thursday has not really given up her dangerous job of keeping the fictional world in order. Blessed with the rare ability to travel in and out of books, Thursday and the other agents of Jurisfiction kee ...more

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Sep 23, 2013 Paul rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2014

Fourteen years have passed since the last book, and Thursday Next now has a teenage son, now works for a carpet company and has a side income smuggling cheese in from Wales. But all is not right in the world of books. reading rates are falling, Sherlock Holmes has and others have been killed, and they start to think that there is a serial killer loose in bookworld.

On top of that the Goliath corporation is trying to muscle in on travel to bookworld. The carpet company is a front for the real work ...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Joanna Compton-Mys rated it it was amazing

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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Mar 28, 2018 Roz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, urban-fantasy

I enjoyed this, although I do not know how I would compare it to the earlier books in the series. It has been too long, and there were too many books in between reading book 4 and book 5. Memory says this one didn't have as many insider literary jokes. My opinion on this is that it was probably a good thing. The last few books seemed strung together more by humour and not plot.

This novel starts 14 years later than the previous book. We meet a moody, smelly Friday Next, who oozes lazy teenager t ...more

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Mar 28, 2017 Victoria rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5* really. A good read. Still enjoying the series. Not quite sure why I haven't just given it 4* but it just doesn't feel like it was quite there. I enjoyed listening to it but I wasn't desperate to pick it up all the time.

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Nov 25, 2017 Mace rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle, 2017, winter-reading-challenge-2017

I was curious where this series would go after the first four books, and was concerned when this book started 14 years after the last. But I stand corrected: I love the direction the book has taken. A hilarious amount of retcon, the same wonderful mix of high and low brow comedy, and plenty of new, interesting twists that will help move the series long. Delightful!

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Jan 24, 2013 Melissa rated it it was amazing

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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Jul 16, 2012 Metaphorosis rated it liked it

Shelves: reviewed, 2012-rev

I thought the first of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels, The Eyre Affair, was fantastic. Funny, literate, clever - a wonderful book, especially for voracious readers. One of the funniest books I've read, and I recommended it to others, bought it for them, and just generally enjoyed it. While the next three books in the series weren't quite as magical, they were also a lot of fun.

By the time I reached the end of Something Rotten, though, I felt the joke had started to run thin. Not that there ...more

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Sep 12, 2007 Eviltwinjen rated it liked it

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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Dec 25, 2014 Barbm1020 rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-books

In Jasper Fforde's wonderful book, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels First Among Sequels we find Thursday no longer a young and eager secret agent in the world of literary law enforcement, but a middle-aged wife (of her formerly eradicated but now retrieved husband) and mother of 2 (or possibly 3). The British Archipelago is suffering from a Stupidity Surplus which results in bad decision-making on the part of many government agencies, including an enormous tax on Welsh Cheese imports to Englan ...more

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Jan 30, 2009 Gayle rated it liked it

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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Around the Year i...: First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde	1	6	Oct 04, 2018 11:12PM
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About Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde

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Fforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-man Fforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.

After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.

Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.

Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.

In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.

His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.

Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.

Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)

Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey ...more