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I sense from other GR user's comments on this novel a level of dissatisfaction: how the plot isn't what it should be and the characters poorly sketched. Perhaps another way of thinking about the book is exploring the many ways it isn't like other books. One point raised in the chat with Ibb is the genericlessness of Thursday and Granny Next plus her memories invaded by Aornis may be evidence of the 32-plot UltraWord.

Story Operating Systems are given much attention here, and their importance has grown from when I first read the book. Then it seemed like a parody of Windows, but now it is almost an allegory for why writers choose to write. Similarly, the characters that populate the BookWorld all have unique opinions of their purpose in (fictional) life, and personality clashes in Wuthering Heights could tear apart story.

The use of footnotes communication between BookWorld characters, as well as junky adverts and the occasional crossed lines, takes some getting used to: what point do they begin and especially when they end? Bradshaw makes a pertinent point about how any thing created by people is bound to have corruption and bureaucracy involved. At Norland Park the ball gets rolling with the mundanities of the fascinating BookWorld.

Family is great but a weekend reunion at the other end of my timezone can put a crimp on my two-chapters-a-day reading schedule. Nevertheless, got to pick out some fascinating fictional beasts as Perkins showed Thursday around Sword of the Zenobians and spotted a host of Outlanders mentioned: Mycroft, Spike and the misspelled Nakijima! Next chapter brought back Havisham and Wednesday Next. Family's the best!

This is going to be a fun first term, reading excerpts from Vygotsky's psychological studies. Seems to me a combination of Ecotopia and the film A Dangerous Method, although neither Jung nor Freud are mentioned in the index. This edition's has an intriguing chapter 8 on preliterate society, but I read instead a different chapter 8: http//www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/wor... - OMFrG!

Family is great but a weekend reunion at the other end of my timezone can put a crimp on my two-chapters-a-day reading schedule. Nevertheless, got to pick out some fascinating fictional beasts as Perkins showed Thursday around Sword of the Zenobians and spotted a host of Outlanders mentioned: Mycroft, Spike and the misspelled Nakijima! Next chapter brought back Havisham and Wednesday Next. Family's the best!

I have yet to see any acknowledgements for theorists of literature, but Fforde has developed quite a solid explanation for how books are created from the characters' point of view. Fiction runs by very well established set of rules and the characters themselves are actively engaged in making stories readable, like Snell, Mr Grnksghty or newbie generics who each play their part. Or they are destroyed and parts reused.

Can't remember how much of Granny Next was in Lost in a Good Book, but it is always nice to read about her and her sage advice for young Thursday. Another bit of time traveling into the alternate past, with events of the Crimean war only slightly different from how they were originally reported in Tolstoy's Sevastopol sketches: more armoured vehicles, but the same purposeless. Aornis' pangs are without pain.

What I had imagined as a chicken-before-the-egg situation between Fforde's Next series and Nursery Crime Division is actually the reverse: Jack and Mary may have been around for ages, as far back as 1976, and little to do with Humpty-Dumpty at all. Constructing the Well of Lost Plots may have provided the author with as good an excuse as any to flesh out unpublished (and unpublishable) stories from his greener years.

Among the many impressive features of Fforde's books, the one most overlooked is text surrounding the story. The dedication to his wife, the note about UltraWord being offline and ImaginoTransference OS being used in its place as well as the flyers appearing on the final pages, all of these elements are so poststructuralist. I can't think of a better book for the start of my doctoral studies in multimodal literature!

With perhaps a brief cameo of wounded Mikhailov, leaving Sevastopol as another Mikhail takes his place, nothing seems familiar about the besieged city except for the falling stars of ceaseless bombardment. The soldiers themself are given names but lack the identities from earlier installments, and even the names "brave" and "coward" seem to have lost their importance as the battle wages on for another wearying month.

So parts of Shōnagon are made up bits to disguise the facts as the Heian author thought might be too controversial, and while Jane doesn't purport to tell the whole truth about her Year of Meat, there are enough facts to be found elsewhere to support her claims. Even with the covered up faces and meat marketing men getting in trouble, the fiction only works for those that believe in knowledge as an empowering force.

As the year draws to a close, Jane and Akiko meet up, and like so many Christmastime stories, ghosts are brought back into their lives and accounts seem to be settled. Jane has a lot of apologizing to do while working on the summary My American Wife! episode - the tell-all version that makes sense of mystery behind the meat. Akiko moves forward by reviewing the lives of a few of the Wives in person.

After a couple days in October,I was expecting a month of hospital rest for the two heroines. One was short and devastating, the other was longer and generative. Not sure where the month of November actually began, but no surprise that as their Year of Meats starts to wrap up, some narrative deviations would happen. Yet both Jane and Akiko seem to be headed in the right direction, at long last, away from Joichi Ueno!

Going multiple perspectives for this installment of Sevastopol Sketches, there are a couple handfuls of characters preening to fight for honour, bravery or advancement, but scared witless when the stars start falling. Some locals and infantry make brief appearances, but the story focuses largely on those higher up, often not being the same person internally. Funny how Prince Galtsin's witty story is omitted.

An all-day pass into the December heat of the Crimean War. Tolstoy's first published work has an unsettling sense of personal immediacy. Perhaps due to the pronouns used, here translated into English as you, I, he and occasionally she, mainly focused on the second-person singular whose nationalism remains unflagging support of Russia, even though "your" side invaded Moldavia and Wallachia. People win the day for Leo.

I am very thankful that I had given up beef and pork just over a month ago, and the last hamburger I ate was in France, as far away from the horrendous freak show of Dunn & Son Custom Cattle Feed and slaughter represents. It is one of the most common reactions, but I cannot see myself ever enjoying another hamburger again. The only thing that could have made this chapter more odious is a spiteful J. Ueno showing up.

Forget all psychological development, even the intriguing etymology behind Fleming's villains like Le Chiffre and Dr. No, Joe the Monster is as dull as his name suggests, and his silly scheme hardly worth the trouble it takes to tap into my iPhone. More troubling, however, is how often the Potts' moral compass gets thrown off by the thought of brekky or boxes of chocolates, they're really reckless foodie adventurers.

Takagi has put her foot in it uncovering the medical miseries caused by chemically-enhanced meats. So while things may be working out fine on the reproductive side for her, her carelessness is causing others harm. Emotionally, Sloan and Suzie seem to want things Jane is unable to give back; physically, Akiko is becoming a punching bag for the jerk-husband, now simply named J. Ueno, who may've knocked her up.

Asides from the double-barreled narrative of women with unique fertility issues, this chapter shows the evolving sensibilities of two other characters, Oh and Suzuki, who started off as crass and often drunk trainwrecks. Both men have become more caring, nurturing and dare I say feminine while getting the required shots for the weekly installments of American Wife. Perhaps to build contrast for the heroines.

DAY 12 - Finished up the last two chapters and had plenty of time to draw out conclusions about what might happen next and also to consider how long ago these events seem from the time that Jennifer narrates them. She mentions there is still time before Tiger takes over once her own indentured service is over. Two years and no mention of Shandar's return? What has Fforde got up his multifaceted sleeve for book three?

Akiko's storyline is put on pause while Jane gets to rewind and scroll back through formative experiences in her life. Revisiting the library and the 1902 socials textbook have me a wonderful shocker to present my 21st century high schoolers with, and the commentary of the Races of Man called into question. As bold as this geographer may seem today, Jane is as reckless with evaluating events in her own Year of Meats.

DAY 11 - Who could resist making a meal out of all the rising tension and sudden twists? It was quite the performance today, vocally and evocatively, particularly when Blix had a brief Darth Vader moment. So many students momentarily waking from the smartphone-induced slumber to connect, as a class, to a single line of dialogue, there is a certain amount of magic involved in reciting these words that thrilled me too.

DAY 10 - Really getting into the story, making lots of observations and asides, and more students seem to be responding with curiosity and even murmurs of excitement. The twists in the narrative: from the surge to assassination plot, sensory deprivation to musical sublimities, and a false ending thrown in for fun - Jennifer invited Once Magnificent Boo to lunch, she came and all lived happily ever after. Thanks, CCH!

After an inordinately long time on my "currently reading" list, I am finally getting around to what I started just over a year ago. The whimsical tale of an odd family and their uppity car seemed a little dull as Fleming sets up their picnic on the beach, but after traveling through the air, across the English Channel and into a mysteriously booby-trapped limestone cave, the bedtime tale has taken on Jungian imagery.

DAY 9 - The game's afoot, with Act Three well and truly underway, and yet I am still meeting with indifferent glares and more than a few glances towards mobile phones - no wonder why so many teachers hate these devices! I gave these students a task to find Hereford Cathedral, the medieval bridge or even possible location of Zambini Towers on their digital maps, but nobody was keen to break from gaming or facebooking.

I enjoyed the distinction being made in this chapter between authenticity and wholesomeness, whether it was comparing the healthy lamb meat of Australia to the DES-contaminated meats of America, or the real American families like Miss Helen and the Bukowskys or the phonies that Ueno insists are more perfect models of togetherness and family; as if he is any authority on these matters. Good for Akiko going Australian!

One person's meat is another's poison, an old saying which proves true for both Jane and Akiko's inability to conceive: the former is able to have uninhibited sex with her partner Sloan while the latter gets shamed by her husband and physician. Leave it up to the salaryman Wayno to turn the tables on both women, but he still doesn't come across as the villain. He's more of an empty suit tainted by BEE- EX executives.

DAY 8 - Back on track, and exactly where I wanted to be with the students: the end of the second act by the end of the second week. A few more of them are lending ears to the many twists the story takes, and could add some more statements to the "Facts so far" whiteboard. A boy wanted to know if Shandar counts as an antagonist and another made the distinction between human-vs-human and human-vs-nature - no girls yet?

Wrapping up the story, though not yet for the series, proves that Jasper Fforde writes a good balance between just enough to tie up loose ends, such as what will happen with Re-Magnificentized Boo and the Quarkbeasts, and enough left open, such as the dragons and the return of the Mighty Shandar. Book 3's release has had many changes over the year or so since I first read the second :-P that loose ends are preferred.