The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 11, 2012 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, time-travel, alternate-planes-and-histories

This had been on my TBR list for a while; I finally read it as part of the popsugar 2015 Ultimate Reading Challenge, first book by a popular author. I'm not sure exactly how popular Fforde is, but ... Close enough?

This book is quirky in a way that I was completely not expecting. What I expected: a detective interacts with Jane Eyre in an off-kilter investigation. And while that does happen, that's not the quirky part. The quirky part is that all these odd things are going on and mostly being tre This had been on my TBR list for a while; I finally read it as part of the popsugar 2015 Ultimate Reading Challenge, first book by a popular author. I'm not sure exactly how popular Fforde is, but ... Close enough?

This book is quirky in a way that I was completely not expecting. What I expected: a detective interacts with Jane Eyre in an off-kilter investigation. And while that does happen, that's not the quirky part. The quirky part is that all these odd things are going on and mostly being treated as totally unsurprising, even normal. I expected silliness, along the lines of a Mother Goose mystery I read to my kids once. And okay, one guy is named Jack Schitt, so I guess it's silly, but in a very dry way.

The central conceit, which is very subtle, is that this is an alternate universe, where many many little things are different, leading to some big differences. I appreciated the subtlety, and found it very charming and appealing. (view spoiler)

What kept me from really loving this book was the odd remove the characters seem to feel from the events unfolding. The characters were in grave danger, but kept a very British stiff upper lip throughout. "It'll be a doddle." Their apparent lack of concern left me feeling less than engaged.

An odd little quirk, which would set me off balance each time, was the occassional mention of the religion, "GSD.". For me, GSD has a very definite meaning, which is German Shepherd Dog. In this book, it means Global Standard Deity, the one meaningless and ridiculous religion that has overtaken and absorbed all other religions. Now, I'm fine with treating religion as ridiculous, but I'm not sure if Mr Fforde intended this particular confusion.

I will definitely read more from this series someday, but it's not at the top of my list. ...more

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Jul 15, 2007 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned, books-about-books, recommend-to-friends, favorites, magic-sci-fi-fantasy

This book was really fun. It was sort of bizarre and hard to get into at first due to its semi sci-fi nature, but once I got into it I quite enjoyed it. The literary references were a hoot and the names of the characters were very, well, punny. For example, one of the antagonists is called Jack Schitt. This book is about what can happen when your favorite book comes to life... literally.

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Aug 16, 2007 Doina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: british-comedy

first book in this series. very enjoyable, i just couldn't put it down once i started reading it. i always recommend it to my friends to read, but i never know how to describe it. i just recently saw jasper fforde on a book tour, and he was mentioning that one of the reasons it took him years to publish this book was because he did not know how to get people to read it based on a description. so i will give his advice to whomever is interested in reading this, just read it. don't ask any questio ...more

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Feb 09, 2011 Erin (NY) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-own, read-in-2012

I liked this book a lot. It is very imaginative. I love the world that was created, in which, seemingly, anything is possible, such as jumping into famous novels. I enjoyed meeting the familiar characters from Jane Eyre, and the new spin we get on that story. Highly recomend to anyone who likes classics and fantasy. ...more

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