Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good and gets better as you go along
Review: This is the second in the "Thursday Next" mystery series. What I enjoyed most about the first one, "The Eyre Affair," was the combining of a thriller-type plot with a literary 'angle' (in Thursday's world the cops chase the criminals in and out of books).In this sequel, Fforde emphasizes the fantastical over the literary: Thursday's world now include such non-literary elements as a race of cloned Neanderthals confined to menial labor, a transportation system that sends you from one side of the wo5rld to the other directly through the earth's core, and a corporation so powerful that it can erase people from history entirely. This is all highly entertaining but readers who loved the first book for its literary references will have to wait until later (roughly page 163), when Fforde introduces a new cluster of literary characters, including Miss Havisham (from Great Expectations) as the wiley leader of a posse of fictional cops policing the world of literature itself. Even the more 'classical' reader will be rewarded by sticking with the book past this halfway point.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many loose ends at the conclusion
Review: I will give nothing away regarding the ending of this book.
While I enjoyed the book and found the alternate world Mr. Fforde creates very interesting, I was disappointed by how many plot lines Mr Fforde developed but left unresolved.
While definitely interesting, I would only read this book if you are willing to commit to reading the sequel, as it does not stand alone.
Rating:
Summary: Enough already! Clever, but just too much
Review: Literary Detective Thursday Next is back in Lost in a Good Book, a sequel to last year's delightful *The Eyre Affair*. The series is set in an alternate universe in the mid-1980's, a world in which dodo birds and Neanderthals have been reengineered, where ChronoGuard detectives regularly surf through time, and where literature is taken *very* seriously indeed. As we learned in *The Eyre Affair*, some movement between the fictional and real worlds is possible: Thursday spent some time in *Jane Eyre* in the last book. In *Lost in a Good Book* there is a good deal more of this book jumping. Thursday lands in Kafka's *The Trial*, for example, as well as in *Great Expectations*, where a shabbily-dressed Miss Havisham--who's got a Sony Walkman stashed in her bureau and knows her way around a stick shift--has signed on to teach Thursday the finer points of book travel.
What is most noteworthy about *Lost in a Good Book*, for both good and ill, is that it is filled to bursting with cleverness: because of some boundary changes, for example, the Cheshire Cat's name is now the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat; Odysseus is in court on a charge of "Grievous Bodily Harm against Polyphemus the Cyclops"; parasitic adjectivores plague books by gobbling up descriptive terms while leaving nouns intact. And so on. It's all very clever, but several ingenious bits per page for some four hundred pages and one feels one could choke. It's just too much, as if Fforde has thrown every idea he had into this single volume--books with more pages than they could reasonably hold, a library containing all the books that ever have or will be written, communication between the fictive and real realms via footnote. (Sick of it yet?) As a result, the details of the book are highly forgettable, and one feels virtually no interest in the fate of the characters. Fforde should have stopped perhaps 150 pages earlier, before he had shot every bolt in his quiver, before the reader starts thinking, if he does not scream aloud, "Enough!"
Rating: 
Summary: jasper fforde is my hero.
Review: you wanna know how much i like him? i ordered his 3rd novel, "well of lost plots" from the UK amazon many months ago and devored it in a day. you can do the same - just go to amazon.co.uk and buy it and they will send it to you. because, you see, if you've delved into jasper fforde, you probably wont be able to wait for the next installment. that his first novel was rejected 76 times is a tribute to his tenacity and an indictment on how wretched the publishing industry is.
jasper has reminded us that books can be highly imaginative, well-written, funny, exciting, with great characters and great ideas. but what he is doing that other people (e.g. j.k. rowling) is not doing is building on his previous novels. they are moving onto new ideas, new characters, new worlds. nothing stands still.
i love the second novel, but the third features miss havisham - yes, the same one from dicken's great expectations and what happens to her... well, i'm kind of freaked out that i got so emotionally caught up in a character who was only a character in another book to start with anyone. are you lost? not if you've read any of jasper's books. they are another universe and one that we are richer for getting a glimpse into.
thank you, jasper, for sticking through 76 rejections and letting us share in your brilliant creation.
Rating:
Summary: What's Next?
Review: It's hard not to like this novel. I didn't get to read The Eyre Affair so had to catch up with Thursday Next from the introduction but it didn't detract from a fun read. This is an adult bibliophile's fairy tale. Imagine being able to jump into your favorite book , meeting up with fiction characters and act as one yourself. This book was never silly, never pretentious. You find yourself wistfully thinking what it would be like if you could really transport yourself into stories as Ms. Next does. Can't wait for the next episode!
Rating:
Summary: Inventive and Original World
Review: I thoroughly enjoy inhabiting the world of Thursday Next and look forward to her next adventure. It's hard to find an original idea any more but Jasper Fforde has done it. When he teased us by hinting that Thursday might be going into our limited world for a while..I was screaming, "NOOOOO!" Luckily, she declined. Anyone who loves books will enjoy the fantasy of actually speaking to a favorite character and being a part of the fictional world. The book did make me feel ignorant because I haven't read every book the author refers to, but I got over it. I love Thursday's intelligence and ability to think quickly in emergencies. She's a wonderful heroine and I only wish I could jump in the book and tell her myself!
Rating:
Summary: Much better than the Eyre Affair
Review: I read the Eyre Affair rather quickly but found myself wondering through most of the book what was really going on. But perhaps this is not such a bad thing. If you are tired of being spoon fed your thrills or have recently waded through some not-so-good sequels (a.k. Harry Potter V, then tackle these two books immediately! Book 2, Lost in a Good Book picks up where the last left off. We get a lot more clues as to what is going on in 1980's Britain, that is not really Britain as we know it (the Allies lost WWII?). But not to give anything away. In this story, Thursday Next is off to her next encounter with bad guys stealing first edition books and meets up with all sort of new characters - real and literary. She also learns how to slip in and out of the books without the aid of her uncle's contraptions. The borders between the literary world and the "real" world become even thinner in this book. Be sure to reread a few of the classics - such as Sense and Sensibility, David Copperfield and many more -- or you may really be "lost" in this good book. Not for the nonliterary or unsophisticated reader, there is nevertheless enough Adamsian humor in this book (and especially the next book Well of Lost Plots - available in paperback now from amazon.uk and amazon.de for those not wanting to wait until Feb. 2004) to satiate those of us still devastated by Adams' untimely departure. I particularly liked the explanation (in Well of Lost Plots) of the spelling differences between American English and English English being attributed to a dearth of u's - more than that I don't want to give away. Anyway a brilliant trilogy of books (a fourth is also coming) for Jasper Fforde's writing career to kick off.
Rating:
Summary: It's the Thursday Next version of 'Empire Strikes Back'.
Review: The second book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series started off a little slow, but as soon as it picked up, it was definitely an attention grabber. The thing i like about these books is how he plays with characters from other books, but doesn't mess them up as some authors might. I guess it's really difficult to explain without just writing out the entire plotline, but i'll say this much: if you like english classics like anything written by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens.....stuff like that, and if you've actually read those books, i think you'll like this series (though the writing style isn't the same....which I think is a good thing). He borrows characters and settings from those books a lot to write his books. I was glad that I had read those books back in high school because I'm not sure I'd like these books as much if I hadn't.....might not have understood them as much. At any rate, I did like this one, though it had an Empire Strikes Back ending (unlike the first which had A New Hope ending), which leaves me hanging until the next book comes out. Again, if you're into the classics, I'd definitely recommend this book (though start with 'The Eyre Affair' as that's the first in the series).
Rating:
Summary: A good sophomore effort, but almost too much to handle
Review: Time travel, Neanderthal lawyers, mammoth migrations, Supremely Evil Being hunts, stupid second law of thermodynamics tricks, diabolical corporations bent on retribution, all life on earth reduced to a pink goo, and - of course - Miss Haversham (of Dickens' "Great Expectations") doing her best Mario Andretti through the streets of England can mean only one thing: Thursday Next is back. Jasper Fforde returns his sassy literary detective of "The Eyre Affair" for a second escapade in "Lost in a Good Book," as she battles enough bad guys to make MI-5 jealous. A special operative tracking malfeasance as it relates to books and lit (in a world that craves Shakespeare more than Spears), Thursday finds herself blackmailed into retreiving a Goliath Corporation enforcer she previously left trapped in Poe's "The Raven." Her new husband erased by the time-traveling ChronoGuards, Thursday winds up stuck in an alternate timeline she can't undo. Add to this the mysterious appearance of an unknown Shakesparean work, throw in a bizarre set of coincidences that seem bent on wiping her out as well , then top it off with her time-hopping fugitive father showing her the end of the world will come in a few weeks unless she can stop it, and our poor heroine is up the Thames without a paddle. But all is not lost, for Thursday has a new trick up her sleeve: she can jump into books without the aid of her uncle's Prose Portal (from the first book.) Her skill brings the attention of Jurisfiction, a motley assortment of literary figures who are responsible for maintaining the integrity of all written material. Apprenticed to Miss Haversham, she quickly builds her skills to the point that she can even enter into the verboten Poe books, saving the world along the way. In what can only be described as a whirlwind of a comic sci-fi thriller, "Lost in a Good Book" finds Fforde ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels. His writing chops are clearly a step up from "The Eyre Affair", but good grief! This book has enough plots, characters, action, and mayhem to be ten books. It's too much; the result being that nearly every scene is clipped in order to fit into its almost four hundred pages. This makes for an outstanding page-turner, but a confusing one to review. It actually lacks the depth of "The Eyre Affair" while - oddly enough - being more satisfying than its predecessor. Thursday has shed some of her Ally McBeal-ness, the villain is less over-the-top, and the author's gears are showing a bit less. The talent has caught up, but Jasper, please take it easy! In my review of "The Eyre Affair" I commented that the book was "Douglas Adams Lite." Well, "Lost in a Good Book" begins its first page honoring Adams with an in-joke his fans will recognize. For anyone who has read both series, the comparisons with Adams' "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" are impossible to miss, but for those of us dying for that brand of humor and recklessness, "Lost in a Good Book" will definitely assuage the longing. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Mystery with a Monty Python Touch
Review: the puns and sly descriptions, names in this british authored book are superb. I picked this up in the airport and was hooked. jasper fforde has quite a cult following in england and has a website with all sorts of interesting items. His new book is coming out in american in 2004. I recommend this refreshing detective series set in the near future. it is complete with time travel, large corporations with ruthless and silly named leaders and werewolves and book police and much more. it is a hard book to describe except it keeps you interested all the way. don't forget the pet cloned Dodos everyone has! wild !!
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