''Lost in a Good Book'' is an alternate history

fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fa ...

Jasper Fforde Jasper Fforde (born 11 January 1961) is an English novelist, whose first novel, '' The Eyre Affair'', was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his '' Thursday Next'' novels, but has published two books in the loosely connected '' Nursery Cr ...

. It won the

Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

2004

Dilys Award The Dilys Award was presented every year from 1992 to 2014 by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. It was given to the mystery title of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The Independent Mystery Bookseller ...

. It is the second in the

Thursday Next Thursday Next is the protagonist in a series of comic fantasy, alternate history mystery novels by the British author Jasper Fforde. She was first introduced in Fforde's first published novel, '' The Eyre Affair'', released on 19 July 2001 by ...

series.

Synopsis

''Lost in a Good Book'' is the second book by

and the sequel to the first adventure of literary detective

, ''

The Eyre Affair ''The Eyre Affair'' is the debut novel by English author Jasper Fforde, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2001. It takes place in an alternative 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Char ...

''. ''Lost in a Good Book'' uses a variety of literary

allusion Allusion is a figure of speech, in which an object or circumstance from unrelated context is referred to covertly or indirectly. It is left to the audience to make the direct connection. Where the connection is directly and explicitly stated (as ...

s as it follows Thursday through a vast government conspiracy.

Plot summary

Three months after the events of ''The Eyre Affair'', Thursday Next is happily married to Landen Parke-Laine and working as a literary detective in Swindon. One day, Thursday meets her father, a renegade ChronoGuard, who informs her that the world's going to end in a flood of an unknown pink chemical. This is a result of one of her uncle Mycroft's inventions going out of control. Mycroft has destroyed his Prose Portal after the events of ''The Eyre Affair'' and retired, leaving the invention business in the hands of his two well-meaning but inept sons, Orville and Wilbur. Thursday is sent with her partner, Bowden Cable, to the mansion of Lord Volescamper, a major supporter of the front-runner in the up-coming election for President. In his extensive library, they discover an original manuscript of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's lost play ''

Cardenio ''The History of Cardenio'', often referred to as simply ''Cardenio'', is a lost play, known to have been performed by the King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. The play is attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in a Stati ...

''. Tests done at the station determine its authenticity, and it seems to have appeared just in time to help its discoverer, Yorrick Kaine, to win the election (thanks to the "Shakespeare vote"). When he releases the play to the general public, victory is all but guaranteed. Thursday had marooned Jack Schitt in

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

's ''

The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myst ...

'' at the end of ''

'', and his employer, The Goliath Corporation, a Big Brother-like agency which is the ''de facto'' ruler of England, wants him back. They hire a ChronoGuard agent named Lavoisier to eradicate Thursday's husband Landen from the time line, as a hostage to blackmail Thursday into retrieving Schitt. Landen vanishes, and only Thursday remembers him. But she also has physical proof—she's pregnant with their child. Without Mycroft's Prose Portal, however, she'll have to learn a new way to travel between books. During one of her dreams, she encounters Landen in her memory, who spurs her to travel to

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

to meet Mrs. Nakajima, a woman who's learned how to travel through books. Mrs Nakajima introduces her to bookjumping, the method by which one enters the fictional world without the Prose Portal: those with an inherent talent for it can literally read themselves into the world of fiction and Thursday does so. It turns out that there is a police force within literature (both fiction and non-fiction), Jurisfiction, which employs both fictional characters and real people ranging from the

Cheshire cat The Cheshire Cat ( or ) is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While now most often used in ''Alice''-related contexts, the association of a "Ch ...

and the Red Queen to

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by ...

and

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

, and ensures that literature continues in an orderly fashion. Next herself is apprenticed as a rookie Jurisfiction agent to

Miss Havisham Miss Havisham is a character in the Charles Dickens novel '' Great Expectations'' (1861). She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion wit ...

, the abandoned bride from

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

' novel '' Great Expectations''. Thursday is, however, in some legal trouble in the literary world for having changed the ending of

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...

, in ''The Eyre Affair''. After a preliminary hearing in the Byzantine world of

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...

's ''

The Trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and p ...

'' and saving Abel Magwitch from drowning before the beginning of ''Great Expectations'', Havisham and Thursday part ways and the latter character enters "The Raven" and retrieves Jack Schitt. But Goliath have no intention of keeping their word, and they trap Thursday in a Corporation warehouse without any reading material with which she can read herself out. Miss Havisham finds her there when it's discovered that the copy of ''Cardenio'' which Thursday found in the real world was stolen from the Great Library (a building where copies of every book ever written or conceived of are kept) by another literary character. Miss Havisham uses one of Thursday's clothing labels to read the pair (eventually and with great effort) back to the Great Library. Guided through her dreams and memories by Landen, Thursday finds the event that caused the world-ending accident—or rather, the person: Aornis Hades, Acheron Hades' sister who wants revenge on Thursday for Acheron's death in ''The Eyre Affair''. Aornis can edit people's memories so they don't remember her presence, which is why Thursday needed help from Landen to find Aornis in her own memory. ''Cardenio'' is retrieved but Aornis escapes and now Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and SpecOps all seek to apprehend Thursday on Goliath's contrived charge of stealing corporate secrets. At the book's end, Aornis pressures Thursday to kill herself so that Aornis will prevent the world from turning into Dream Topping. Thursday's father takes her place in the nick of time and sacrifices himself as Mycroft's Dream Topping (see dream whip) making machine breaks down and begins producing the goo continuously; he takes all the Dream Topping to the dawn of Earth, where it—and he—will supply the organic nutrients needed to create life. Afterwards, Thursday returns home and finds her father there. She is confused until she realizes that, being a time traveller, he will sacrifice himself much later in his future, even though it was just a little while ago in hers. Now that she is wanted by Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and Aornis, her father offers to place her in an alternate reality for a while (it is ironically implied that this is our reality) while she gives birth to Landen's baby. Refusing her father's offer, Thursday travels to a book in the Well of Lost Plots—a subdivision of the Great Library that contains unpublished and unfinished works—in order to take a year's maternity leave with her memory of Landen. She establishes a home in a moored flying boat (a

Short Sunderland The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North Ea ...

), after trading places with the plucky sidekick sergeant of a police procedural mystery; it is implied that this is Sergeant Mary Mary, from one of Fforde's other works, '' The Big Over Easy''.

Characters

*Brik Schitt-Hawse * Landen Parke-Laine *Akrid Snell *Mycroft Next *Wednesday Next *Polly Next *Thursday's Father *

*Cordelia Flakk: Spec Ops PR Agent *Victor Analogy: Head of Swindon LiteraTechs *Agent "Spike" Stoker: SO17 Agent, friend of Thursday, pays her 600 quid to help him for one night *Joffy Next: Thursday's Brother. *Bowden Cable: Thursday's partner in Swindon

Reception

''Lost in a Good Book'' has been positively received by critics. ''

SF Site SF may refer to: Locations * San Francisco, California, United States * Sidi Fredj, Algeria * South Florida, an urban region in the United States * Suomi Finland, former vehicular country code for Finland In arts and entertainment Genre ...

'' compared Fforde to both

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), BBC radio comedy, ''The H ...

and

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first no ...

and called ''Lost in a Good Book'' "a light-hearted and delightful farce", while ''Salon'' called it "as sweet and light as the promise of spring".Miller, Laura (March 14, 2003)
"Lost in a Good Book" by Jasper Fforde
archived on www.jasperfforde.com, accessed December 19, 2012

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lost In A Good Book 2002 British novels Thursday Next series British fantasy novels Novels by Jasper Fforde Metafictional novels Novels about World War II alternate histories 2002 fantasy novels Dilys Award-winning works Novels set in Wiltshire Hodder & Stoughton books