Lost in a Good Book

, #2

Trade Paperback, 399 pages

English language

Published Feb. 23, 2004 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-200403-6
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
54475957

View on OpenLibrary

(43 reviews)

The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with THE EYRE AFFAIR continues with Jasper Fforde's magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next.

When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside books. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dicken's GREAT EXPECTATIONS, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe's THE RAVEN. What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter's THE TALE OF THE FLOPSY BUNNIES, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a …

4 editions

reviewed Lost in a good book by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next, Part 2)

Five coincidences, seven Irma Cohens and one confused Neanderthal

There are like three story lines and one of them is a bit unnecessary.

I liked the story less than the Eyre Affair, but it's an absolute banger.

There is significantly less thought-provoking constructs in the book than in Douglas Adams books, but there's one quote which stung quite a bit with how applicable it is to the country I live in:

Sadly for Goliath, even the hardiest of medical technicians balked at experiments conducted upon intelligent and speaking entities, so the first batch of Neanderthals were trained instead as "expendable combat units", a project that was shelved as soon as the lack of aggressive instincts in the Neanderthal was noted. They were subsequently released into the community as cheap labour and became a celebrated tax write-off.

Fforde really loves Adams, by the way:

Sample viewing figures for major TV networks in England, September 1985 Owl Vision

Will Marlowe or …

reviewed Lost in a good book by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next, Part 2)

Review of 'Lost in a good book' on 'Storygraph'

So much fun. I liked this more than The Eyre Affair, but I'm not sure whether that's because this is better or because The Eyre Affair was a bit of a letdown after Shades of Grey. Either way, the humour, characters, and world were once again wonderful. I'm not convinced the system of leaping between books is entirely consistent, but that may be me missing things as I get swept along. I'm looking forward to The Well of Lost Plots after I've read a few other books.

Review of 'Lost in a Good Book' on 'Goodreads'

I loved [b:The Eyre Affair|27003|The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1)|Jasper Fforde|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1445540555s/27003.jpg|3436605]. I loved the first third or even half of Lost in a Good Book too. It has a lot of the fun aspects of the first book, and funny lines, like this one:


SO-12 take retrosnatch very seriously and they assure me that it is always detected, sooner or later or both--and dealt with severely.



But then the plot fell apart for me. There is a lot of pressure on Thursday. (Lander is eradicated, the world is about to end, someone is trying to kill her, etc.) Yet she is just running around doing inconsequential stuff (trial, driving, book faire, Spike, etc) or playing into the hands of the enemy.

A big element of the first book's enjoyment for me was the wild-eyed "where am I" feeling. This is of course hard to replicate in a sequel. But I …

reviewed Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next, #2)

Review of 'Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Novels)' on 'Goodreads'

I had this book for about 6 years before I had a chance to read it because it took me too long to get the first in the series. You should probably read the first in the series to get to know the characters, or the stakes won't be very high.

Thursday Next ends up being a detective and these are mystery stories, which aren't my usual fare. But, they are set in such an outlandish world that the setting really tickles me.

I enjoy Fforde's writing and will continue to read Thursday's stories.

Review of 'Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Novels)' on 'Goodreads'

Realised that the footnotes were important to the narrative, had a crappy conversion that didn't include them with the text, rather right at the end.

Not as good as the first, but I enjoyed the new characters (Miss Havesham!) even though the plot was much the same.

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Subjects

  • Next, Thursday (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.
  • Women detectives -- Great Britain -- Fiction.
  • Fiction -- Authorship -- Fiction.
  • Books and reading -- Fiction.
  • Time travel -- Fiction.
  • Fantasy Fiction, English.