With great anticipation I’ve awaited the next book in a series of imaginative fantasy-science fiction books set in England. You’re probably thinking I’m talking about Harry Potter, but you’re wrong. Today I’m celebrating the US release date of Jasper Fforde’s First Among Sequels. This book is the fifth installment in the Thursday Next series.
If you haven’t heard of Jasper Fforde and Thursday Next, check out the previous four books (from your local public library or purchase at an independent book store of course): The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten. The books defy categorization into any one genre although science fiction works since all the books are set in an alternate universe and mystery works as well since Thursday Next is a detective in SpecOps 27 who investigate literary crimes. In the Nextian universe, the populace is obsessed with literature and the greatest delight of these books is that they’re full of literary references and puns.
Jasper Fforde reads from First Among Sequels at Brookline Booksmith on Thursday July 26th. I plan to be there and that’s when I’ll pick up my copy of the book. Once I’ve finished I’ll post a review here (if I ever catch up with my book and movie review backlog).
And yes, I am reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right now.
I am especially intrigued by Thursday Next’s work looking into “the inexplicable departure of comedy from the once-hilarious Thomas Hardy books.”
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Any poet who can have a fish ask “What does this vaingloriousness down here?” knows comedy.
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Speaking of comedy and Thomas Hardy, do you remember the Monty Python sketch with announcers providing minute-to-minute cover age of Thomas Hardy writing a novel?
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Oops typo! Not “cover age” but “coverage.”
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You mean this?
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