The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next, #3)

by Jasper Fforde

“Books”—Snell smiled—“are a kind of magic.”

“Remember that craze a few years back in the BookWorld for sending chain letters? Receive a letter and send one on to ten friends? Well, someone has been overenthusiastic with the letter U—I’ve got a report here from the Text Sea Environmental Protection Agency saying that reserves of the letter U have reached dangerously low levels—we need to decrease consumption until stocks are brought back up. Any suggestions?” “How about using a lower-case n upside down?” said Benedict. “We tried that with M and W during the great M Migration of ’62; it never worked.” “How about respelling what, what?” suggested King Pellinore, stroking his large white mustache. “Any word with the our ending could be spelt or, don’tchaknow.” “Like neighbor instead of neighbour?” “It’s a good idea,” put in Snell. “Labor, valor, flavor, harbor—there must be hundreds. If we confine it to one geographical area, we can claim it as a local spelling idiosyncrasy.”

The leader was identified by his dental records—why he had them on him, no one was quite sure.

I kicked off my shoes and flopped on the sofa next to Gran, who had fallen asleep over a sock she was knitting. It was already a good twelve feet long because, she said, she had “yet to build up enough courage to turn the heel.”