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Thursday Next #8
Dark Reading Matter
Not yet published
Expected 4 Nov 25The final novel in the New York Times bestselling series: Will literary Special Ops agent Thursday Next find her happy ending?
The Dark Reading Matter is a theoretical realm that suggests that the observable bookverse can only account for 20 percent of the calculated total readable mass. Out there somewhere, possibly, is a larger and more expansive and unseeable "Dark Bookverse" that contains millions of deleted novels, slush-pile manuscripts, lost poems, forgotten pop culture references, long unheard oral tradition, stories and ideas that were still in people's minds when they died.
The Goliath Corporation hopes to exploit the Dark Reading Matter for profit, and Thursday Next is once again pitted against a familiar foe. A visitor named Roger Thatt who purports to be from Fourth Wall Publishing has some peculiar ideas of his own that require careful thought. Is Thursday and everyone she knows living in a simulation? Was her world created from scratch Last Thursday as Roger supposes, and are the books she reads the only direction in which books can be read?
With existential questions the least of her troubles and a family to take care of, Thursday must defeat the Goliath Corporation, ensure that a tear in the fabric of the Bookworld does not suck all literature from hers, and conclude her own series so she can enjoy a comfortable retirement, while dodging the threat of the worse fate imaginable for a story: The Scooby Doo ending.
The Dark Reading Matter is a theoretical realm that suggests that the observable bookverse can only account for 20 percent of the calculated total readable mass. Out there somewhere, possibly, is a larger and more expansive and unseeable "Dark Bookverse" that contains millions of deleted novels, slush-pile manuscripts, lost poems, forgotten pop culture references, long unheard oral tradition, stories and ideas that were still in people's minds when they died.
The Goliath Corporation hopes to exploit the Dark Reading Matter for profit, and Thursday Next is once again pitted against a familiar foe. A visitor named Roger Thatt who purports to be from Fourth Wall Publishing has some peculiar ideas of his own that require careful thought. Is Thursday and everyone she knows living in a simulation? Was her world created from scratch Last Thursday as Roger supposes, and are the books she reads the only direction in which books can be read?
With existential questions the least of her troubles and a family to take care of, Thursday must defeat the Goliath Corporation, ensure that a tear in the fabric of the Bookworld does not suck all literature from hers, and conclude her own series so she can enjoy a comfortable retirement, while dodging the threat of the worse fate imaginable for a story: The Scooby Doo ending.
16 pages, Audiobook
Expected publication June 4, 2026
4 people are currently reading
8524 people want to read
About the author
Jasper Fforde
48 books13k followersFforde 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
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
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Want to read
June 21, 2019March 29, 2017: I'm just sitting over here waiting for any sort of update on Dark Reading Matter, trying not to go more insane.
September 20, 2017: I need more Thursday Next
April 10, 2018: I might be starting to go insane.
June 21, 2019: And we wait.
September 20, 2017: I need more Thursday Next
April 10, 2018: I might be starting to go insane.
June 21, 2019: And we wait.
Want to read
May 1, 2021Gee... I hope that Goliath and ChronoGuard haven't forbade Jasper Fforde from writing the book...
Want to read
April 2, 2022Its now 2016 and this book has not appeared. Disappointing.
Edit - its now 2022 and still nothing yet its still listed
Edit - its now 2022 and still nothing yet its still listed
wishlist
June 16, 2025• Book 1: The Eyre Affair ★★★★★
• Book 2: Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
• Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
• Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★
• Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★
• Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★
• Book 7: The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★
• Book 2: Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
• Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
• Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★
• Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★
• Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★
• Book 7: The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★
currently-reading-series
June 10, 2023What bothers me is that Pickwick's been stuck in the dark reading matter for more than ten years.
Want to read
September 9, 2024We're finally getting this one now, too?? JASPER WHERE IS NURSERY CRIME 3.
November 8, 2015
Was disappointed - have read all of Jasper Fforde's Tuesday Next novels and think he should have stopped with the one before this.
August 25, 2021
It’s like the Chronicles of St Mary’s had a baby with The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it came out a librarian. I loved it.
Want to read
October 10, 2021Mr Fforde, come onnnnnnnnn, when is this book going to come out??
Want to read
February 13, 2024When will this book be released? Jan 25,2025
Note: 2/03/24
Note: 2/03/24
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews