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Summary: The Eyre Affair is a hoot!
Review: I was completely surprised by this mystery novel. The author has a wonderful sense of humor with the names he uses for characters and the play on today's society. The inane pet dodos ( various cloned versions) and the Head of the large corporate monster Jack Schitt. Well, this is just a taste of a delightfully fun series. Lots of imagination and a good read.
Rating:
Summary: downright hilarious
Review: Quite the funny-book. The plot is absolutely absurd, which is oen of the reasons it's so incredible! The irony and the dialogue in the so-British humor is absolutely intoxicating and hilarious. Knowledge and/or reading of Jane Eyre is somewhat recommended, but not required to enjoy this book.
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Summary: Fabulous fun!
Review: What a fun novel!! An alternate world where people can travel into books and change the most loved classics--including Jane Eyre. Thursday Next is a fun character, sort of a British version Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum--ballsy, brash, and brave. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves literature and suspensful mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: worth a read
Review: This was defintely and interesting read.. although the ending felt like a cliffhager, till i started on Ffordes next book. If you wanna get this book, you should read Jane Eyre first, maybe twice if you can take it.(i'm lucky since i studied it in high school)anyway, this makes for a fun read if you're into the literary world and all for poking a bit of fun into it.
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Summary: Original, witty and compelling
Review: This book is a delightful read. I was both intrigued and doubtful about the premise. When I try to tell others about it they say, "Hmmmm." But Fforde pulled it off. He takes a wild premise and runs with it in such a way that you are [taken] in, giggling and shaking your head all the way. It's not often that books have me howling out loud. The last one that did that to me was "Me Talk Pretty One day" by David Sedaris. Much to the dismay of those who have to live with me, Fforde managed to have me cackling like a madwoman. I finished the book last night, laughing too loudly into the wee hours. I would definitely recommend this title. If you doubts, set them aside and give this book a chance.
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Summary: A Real Page Turner!
Review: I couldn't put this book down once I started it! Fforde's combination of detective story, science fiction and literary homage/allusion is irresistable to a fan of all three. My husband also loved the book, but he often asked me to explain the literary references, so people with a good grasp on canonical British literature might get more out of the book than those who don't remember their college English courses. I particularly suggest a quick review of Jane Eyre and Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade before starting Fforde's novel. It will be MUCH funnier and more interesting that way!
Both this novel and its sequel are great books for weekends or vacations. They are the perfect choice for people who read a lot of canonical literature but also enjoy lighter and more humorous novels. In other words, English teachers are guaranteed to love you if you give them this book!
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Summary: Enchanting, fun, and it will send you back to Jane Eyre.
Review: Thursday Next is a wonderful heroine, and her strange family adds to the entertainment. Even if you don't ordinarily enjoy alternative histories, you may like this one. A little science fiction, a little mystery, and lots of humor. By the time I'd finished reading it, I simply had to dig out Jane Eyre for another reading. I'm back for a second round, having just finished the second book in the series--which was great fun as well.
Rating:
Summary: A small gem of a book
Review: After twenty years in the film industry, Jasper Fforde started a career as a novelist and thank goodness. He really wanted a change of direction. The Eyre Affair is close to unflimable - or maybe not - and marks a fine addition of a new comic and fantasy writer. Living in an alternate world where literature and art leads to riots and the Crimean war is still going after 125 years, Wales is a people's republic and characters can be kidnapped from novels, out literary detective Thursday Next, must do a battle with evil and dangerous powers. When you start, you feel that it cannot possibly keep going and the invention on every page must flag at some point, but it doesn't. Not only a good read - but a great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad for a first effort
Review: Jasper Fforde (is this a real name?--I doubt it!) has put togther a reasonably amusing and workmanlike (workwomanlike?) first novel which we are promised (or warned?) is the first of a series. Fforde explores his/her borrowed premises of 'fact/fiction' and 'time travel' with facility and wit, though many American readers may be baffled by the relentlessly British references and names (how many Yanks know what a Bowden Cable is, for example). Some material is stretched beyond its elastic limit in terms of interest or credibility--consider airships, featured in the book, that could have been explored with far more insight and amusement but are merely tossed in without perspective or apparent information.
Flashes of brilliance and wonderful whimsy are interspersed by plodding and inconsistent use of the language and insufficient descriptive detail which would have enriched the text in a book that has been inflated to its 380-page length with wide margins and 32 lines per page. This is a pity, and might have been avoided by editing--realize, in context, that today's publishers eschew editing and expect the writer not only to be his or her own scrupulous editor and fact-checker but also the typesetter. In the case of Fforde this also gives rise, in the American edition, to confusion about words spelled differently in the UK and US, with 'theatre/theater' as a typical annoying example--make up your bloody mind, woncha? Some of the work obviously needed to be read aloud by the author (see my review of Steve Martin's SHOP GIRL for relevance) to reduce the clunker quotient.
Readers expecting divine inspiration or deep insight will be disappointed. Anyone who expects significant exploration of emotion will come away empty handed. Those who are easily amused or who think that a British author is all knowing about literature and has a corner on satirical wit will keep turning the pages, to dig up yet another analogy or manipulated historical name. Dig, dig, dig, but it never quite gells. The infuriating part about this process is that the promise is there in adbunsance but is never truly delivered. Does this, one cannot help wondering, reflect the experience and intellectual bandwidth of the Viking approval staff (Viking published the book in the US) or do both Penguin and Viking despise their readerships and settle for a lowest-common-denominator contempt for the people they expect to buy their books?
In all, this is a book closely akin to a bag of potato chips. One can't eat just one chip or read just one page, as we all know, but the over-all effect is just slightly 'lite' and hollow. In that sense it clearly matches much current popular entertainment (music, film or 'literature') but will probably sell well to readers who do not ask too much of their authors.
Rating:
Summary: A Not So Guilty Pleasure
Review: This book is pure enjoyment! As a student of English literature, I often find myself feeling guilty about reading pulp novels or mysteries, but not this book! The Eyre Affair is "intelligent fun" and full of wit and wordplay. It's an easy read; personally, I couldn't put it down. The names of the characters are the only drawbacks; Thursday, Schitt, Hades, etc. If you can get past that, you're in for a quick-paced adventure.
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