Jasper Fforde has done it again in this genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment. After two rollicking New York Times bestselling adventures through Western literature, resourceful BookWorld literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And what better place for a respite than in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books—like the one she has taken up residence in—are scrapped for salvage. To make matters worse, a murderer is stalking the personnel of Jurisfiction and it’s up to Thursday to save the day. A brilliant feat of literary showmanship filled with wit, fantasy, and effervescent originality, this Ffordian tour de force will appeal to fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with Something Rotten. Look for the five other bestselling Thursday Next novels, including One of Our Thursdays is Missing and Jasper Fforde’s latest bestseller, The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com for a ffull window into the Ffordian world!
Thoughts: What better place to retreat to to lick your wounds and ponder your next step than a book. In this series, you can do that quite literally. The third book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series sees Thursday joining the BookWorld police force, Jurisfiction and moving into a unlikely to ever be published book for a little down time.
Like it's predecessors, The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots is funny, easy to read and full of wonderful ideas and thoughts. You can find yourself twisted around a bit and trying to work out which way is up at times, but Fforde usually unravels it for you at some stage.
In fact, I think there are hidden depths to Fforde's books. There is a lot in there for a book group to discuss. In this the idea of there being no original ideas left is one that has been discussed in literary circles before. Are there any original ideas? Do we need them? How are they generated? What happens to all the ideas that never actually become books?
I'm enjoying this series and will keep reading it but I feel there is great benefit is spacing them out. In this case, I think too much of a Fforde thing could be a challenging thing!
The Well of Lost Plots gets 3 stars!
* Did not like it
** It was OK
*** Liked it
**** Really liked it
***** It was amazing
* Did not like it
** It was OK
*** Liked it
**** Really liked it
***** It was amazing
