Yet another SK book haul

Hello, my lovelies!

Yes, here is yet another smallish bookmail bookhaul of Kingly titles (with two Jasper Fforde books as well).  I'm loving these Hodder covers and hope to collect the majority of them in the future.

Let me know in the comments what your favourite Stephen King find of late is.

And until next time,

 

Where's my book?

Granted, this very rarely happens, but on occasion I do have a book snafu from Book Depository.  This morning my postman arrived bearing two parcels.  One was the gorgeous edition of Perfume by Patrick Suskind {it's sooo pretty!}, 

while the other was a copy of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde... the WRONG edition.

See, it even says 'Hardback' right there on the invoice!

Instead of a lovely hardcover, to match the other books, I find that I have somehow (?) ended up with a paperback.  While not happy, I've already shot off an email to them to hopefully resolve the problem asap.  In the past they have been wonderful in resolving these problems.  A+ for service in my experience, but that doesn't mean that a little part of me isn't terribly disappointed right at this moment.

Will let you know how this plays out ;-D

Until next time,

Review: The Eyre Affair

Source: Amazon (not the copy I'm reviewing)

The Eyre Affair
Thursday Next, Book 1
Jasper Fforde

Published: 2002

Penguin, Hardcover, 374p.
ISBN: 0-670-03064-3

from Large Type book

Thursday Next is a literary detective without equal, fear, or boyfriend.  Thrusday is on the trail of the villainous Acheron Hades who has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom.  Jane Eyre has herself been plucked from the novel of the same name, and Thursday must find a way into the book to repair the damage.

She also has to find time to halt the Crimean conflict, persuade a man to marry her, rescue her aunt from a Wordsworth poem and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's first plays.  Together with a cast of characters that includes her time-travelling father, a pet dodo and Edward Rochester himself, Thursday embarks on an adventure that will take your breath away.

This is the cover of the book that I read from my old library {but I forgot to take a photo, d'oh! } but it makes no difference which edition you read as The Eyre Affair is a fast and funny read no matter the cover.  I wasn't sure what to expect when I first came across this book online.  I hadn't heard of Jasper Fforde, hadn't heard of Thursday Next, and was wondering how this book that sounded so interesting had managed to slip through the fingers of everybody I know!  All fired up, I reserved it from the library, but once I had it in my hands I will admit that I got cold feet.  Will it really be as good as the reviews? Can it live up to my expectations?  So it sat on my bedside table for four weeks.  I had to return it, so the night before it was due I started to read.  I shouldn't have waited so long as the answer to all my questions would have been YES!  The Eyre Affair was such fun.  I flew through it and in just 4 hours I'd devoured the entire book and was left wanting more.

Set in an alternate reality (or if you prefer - a parallel universe) circa 1985, where the Crimean War is still raging, and you too can have the latest extinct species as a pet with the latest DNA Kits, SO-27 LiteraTec Operative, Thursday Next, is about to be shanghied into a case that will drive her to the brink.  

The use of a parallel universe was a great way to explain the very drastic changes in history that Jasper Fforde has used as part of the Thursday Next-verse.  England is a Republic, and people fly in dirigibles - how very Steampunk! - and Goliath Corporation seems to be running the government from the shadows. 

My favourite moments from the book usually involved Thursday.  Such a strong, yet troubled, character.  She has her flaws, but they just make her more interesting. Then there is Pickwick.  How original is it to have a pet Dodo?  I can't remember a book where our heroine has had such a fanciful pet.  Okay, Jayne Castle uses Dust Bunnies, but Dodo's were at least real ;-D  Anyway, Pickwick is Thursday's pet - after meeting registration requirements - who is 12 years old.  A Version 1.2 who has no wings (they didn't get the sequencing right till Version 1.7).

Then there is Thursday's father, the now notorious and rogue Col. Next, who was a member of the timetravelling Chronoguard.  He kept popping into her life - and asking such odd questions - that made sense in the context of the story, but when you first meet him, it's a tad strange.

However it's with the super-villan of the story that Thursday really shines.  Archeron

If you love parallel universes, women sleuths, time-jumping fathers, and plock-plocking pets, then Thursday Next is the series for you.  A great start to what I hope is a unique and fabulous series.  

 

Review: The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy
A Nursery Crime, Book 1
Jasper Fforde

Published: 6 January, 2006 (this copy)

Thorndike Press, Large Type Hardcover, 594p.
ISBN: 0-7862-8233-9

Meet Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, family mand and head of the Nursery Crime Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories.  Spratt is fresh from a spectacular failure to see three wily pigs convicted for the murder of a certain wolf.  The media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him.  Now, new trouble is brewing.  It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day.  Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, minor baronet, lover of women, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death. . . 

 

Like The Eyre Affair, The Big Over Easy was a very imaginative and unique way to start a series.  The world building is so well done that you don't even question the differences between the realities, and you would think that having characters from nursery rhymes would jar you out of the reading experience, but Fforde has merged the two so seemlessly that having Humpty Dumpty fall off his wall doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

The characters were well developed.  Jack Spratt is ameniable, yet has some stored anger towards the obnoxious, egotistical and self-righteous Friedland Chymes.  Mary Mary (quite contrary ;-P ) is the new cop on the beat.  Her almost teenage level of adoration of the great Detective Chymes makes you want to slap her at times, but in all Mary is a likeable character and comes through for Jack Spratt in the end.

It is the murder of Humpty that stumped me.  There were theories, plots and subplots that just seemed to keep coming.  Just as Det. Spratt thought he had unmasked the identity of the killer... poof!  New evidence turned up.  Usually I have an idea - or at least a suspect - in mind as to the motive and identity of the killer, but in The Big Over Easy I wasn't even in the ball park!  A great twist at the end turns the entire investigation on it's head.

I won't go into other character summaries as it may spoil your reading experience, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  As an avid reader I still can't believe that it has taken me this long to find Jasper Fforde - thank you YouTube - but I will now be making a space on my bookshelves for the Thursday Next, and now Nursery Crime series.