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    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Unavailable
    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Unavailable
    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel

    Written by Jasper Fforde

    Narrated by Susan Duerden

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The first in a series of outlandishly clever adventures featuring the resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next-a New York Times bestseller!In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel-unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 30, 2009
    ISBN9781101154441
    Unavailable
    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Author

    Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde is the internationally best-selling author of the Chronicles of Kazam, the Thursday Next mysteries, and the Nursery Crime books. He lives in Wales. www.jasperfforde.com Twitter: @jasperfforde Instagram: @jasperfforde  

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    Reviews for The Eyre Affair

    4/5

    262 ratings273 reviews

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    • 4/5
      How to describe this book? Well, it's kind of a world that, frankly, I think Mr. Fforde wishes he lived in. At least, I know I wish I lived there. The plot is always one tick away from complete madness, and yet it all makes sense in some strange way. Reminds me a lot of Douglas Adams, which from me is high praise. It would be wonderful to be in a place where people actually took their literature seriously.
    • 4/5
      While its contemporary fiction... its an alternate reality in 1985.
      Enjoyable if you love reading.
    • 3/5
      I do not read a lot of "SF" but my brother pressed this book on me and I read it reluctantly and ended up enjoying it.
    • 4/5
      In my opinion, the official synopsis for The Eyre Affair does not do justice to this funny, quirky novel. I first became interested in this book over a year ago but the synopsis actually turned me off of it. It seems a little too crazy to me, besides, who would dare touch my beloved Jane Eyre!? I finally decided to read (actually listen since this was an audio book) The Eyre Affair as part of an online book club.

      The world that Jasper Fforde created for his Thursday Next novels is most definitely a one of a kind. Our heroine, Thursday Next, lives in a world (our world, mind you) where timelines are blurred and the love of literature rules all. This is a story that you have to enter without any preconceived notions on how the world works. It just doesn't work the same in The Eyre Affair.

      I laughed my way through this novel (although I did grimace each time Jack Schitt was mentioned...I mean, really? Could you not have thought of a different name, Mr. Fforde?) and couldn't wait to get to the end to finally fit all the pieces together. The Eyre Affair is most definitely a quirky novel and while it may not be for everyone, I do recommend it for fans of science fiction and time travel. I can also recommend the audio version as I thoroughly enjoyed the narration of Susan Duerdan.
    • 3/5
      These are very fun books by Jasper fforde, with a likable and believably feminine main character, and a cast of literary greats! That is, the books themselves, not just the characters in them. It's a take off of the para-time police, only in this universe, the thing to be maintained is the actual? structure of literary classics, under attack by sinister forces! The number of times I've had to look up plot lines of books I thought I remembered well, has convinced me that the world, as portrayed in literature, is different than the one I remember reading, has made me sure that Thursday Next, is a great woman, and if she suddenly appeared in a book I was reading, I too, would help her accomplish her ends.Aside from my overall service to literature, I won't, however, lift even a comma to save Jane Eyre. What an idiot!
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this little romp! I can see why this book is getting so much buzz and look forward to a chance to read the next one in the series. I enjoyed Fforde's rather schmaltzy style of writing and appreciated the humor, especially with the character names (Jack Schitt, Braxton Hicks, Paige Turner, etc.) and the little bookworms passing gas in the form of extraneous punctuation that appeared in the narrative.Having said that, I can see why others might not appreciate the book. I certainly wouldn't classify it as "great literature" and I always have trouble with stories that include time travel, because it seems the characters could make a lot more changes than they do. But I love the idea of going into a book and meeting the characters, and I think Fforde does a pretty good job of keeping his version of the world pretty consistent.I just thought it was a lot of fun and I certainly never knew what might happen next.
    • 4/5
      A reread, though I don't remember much about the first read, which was nearly ten years ago. Fforde is certainly clever (with his word play and his world-building and his little lit jokes), but I find the cleverness a little thin in this first Thursday Next book. I didn't love the book (I didn't hate it either--neither did I find the cleverness particularly annoying). But I feel a bit like Fforde came up with a nifty idea (an alternate history where literature is immensely popular and where people can jump in and out of books is pretty darn nifty) but forgot to (or didn't bother to?) come up with a really good plot to go on in his world. Husbeast has read most of this series (me, just this first one) and says that the next two or three are better than the first (and that then they sort of drop off again). So perhaps I'll give the next one a go sometime.(Also, I have to say, what is up with the point of view? I'm okay with the odd chapter in third person when the rest of the story is told from first. But random paragraphs in the middle of a first person chapter which go on in third about events the first person narrator has no way of knowing? Come ooon. If that was supposed to point up to some timey-whimey jiggery-pokery, it was not made clear enough to keep the pov shifts from screaming out at me.)
    • 3/5
      So the engineered dodos, the steampunk gadgets, the scientific impossibilities, none of that really bothered me. The main thing that bothered me was that literature was such hot commodity. That goes against what I know of human nature. Let's face it: books are never going to be hot shit. I mean, even those rare editions, one-of-a-kind books... How many are there? Enough to have many many many criminals scheming for the next lit-crime? Really? The other stuff is much more believable compared to this simple fact. Not enough people will ever read literature to make it a profitable business, really. So I had trouble trying to get into the hot chases after lit-criminals.

      I half take it back, because yes, there is other crime that really suits human nature more and is the driving force of some of the crimes in the book. OK.

      I have never read Jane Eyre, and I guess there is a very good reason for that. Sounds like a melodramatic romance novel. Oh, I am sure it was revolutionary (anything in the arts that is not timeless is explained and valued by the argument that it was revolutionary and very different at the time of its creation.) But not enough reason to make me want to read it, really.

      Not much is believable in terms of the current day storyline, especially with the romantic interest of the main character, which seems to follow the melodramatic grain of Jane Eyre. I would have enjoyed it more if it were a book about the dodos and the uncle-inventor-scientist, it seems.

      In the end, it kept me engaged enough that I could finish it. At times, I really had to force myself to keep going and at times I found the reading rather easy-going and pleasant. Will i read another Fforde? Maybe, but certainly not anytime soon.
    • 5/5
      I had listened to this book some time ago but I talked my library book club into reading it for March 2014 and figured I had better re-read it myself. I really love the concept of this book and the wacky English humour.In this alternate history England is still fighting Russia in the Crimea with no end in sight. Thursday Next, the main character, is a veteran of the war. Her brother was killed there and her fiancee lost his leg. When her fiancee, Landen, implicated her brother in leading the Charge of the Light Armored Brigade up the wrong valley, taking them into a Russian ambush, Thursday left Landen. She moved to London where she got a job with Special Operations 27 (or Spec Ops-27), the LiteraTecs. The job of the LiteraTecs is to retrieve stolen manuscripts. There is a big market for original manuscripts so organized crime is in this area. Thursday is seconded to another branch, Spec Ops-5, when the theft of the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit has all the hallmarks of being done by Acheron Hades, a thorough villain. Thursday was taught by Hades and resisted his attempts to seduce her, one of the few people who has been able to resist him and one of the few alive who know what he looks like.There are tons of references to books so it helps if you are familiar with English literature from Shakespeare to Dickens to Hardy and others. There is also the typical British wit which sometimes gets a little too clever. All in all a very satisfactory book. It's the first book in a series so if you like this there are 6 more to read.
    • 4/5
      The only things I knew about The Eyre affair before I read it were: 1. it would be an advantage to have read Jane Eyre first, &2. it was supposed to be funny.Having now read The Eyre Affair, having dutifully read Jane Eyre beforehand, I can say with knowledge that 1 is true and that the book is funny.I found this novel a pleasant, relaxing read and I will be turning to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels for light relief in the future whenever I need it. The book is total escapism and relies upon the cross breeding of science fiction and literature mixed with a good dose of the absurd.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book but it just didn't keep my attention. It felt like there was a lot of extra "stuff" thrown in, details that weren't important. Some were amusing but they took you out of the story.
    • 5/5
      Yes, I love this book. It's like nothing else I've ever read. It holds up well to multiple readings. Its tone is silly and irreverent without being dopey--and it still manages to discuss serious things.

      But the best part is how it portrays the characters and stories of books as something real, and locates them in a place accessible from our own world. I love the alternate version of the present where people are obsessed with literature. I love the history between Thursday and Landen. I love the echoes of Jane Eyre in the present-day storyline. I love Swindon.

      The fact that the book is (sort of) about Jane Eyre is icing on the cake of win.

      There are things I could quibble at, like the goofily-named characters--but when the book as a whole is so awesome, why bother?
    • 5/5
      Absolutely adore this book. Its creative, engaging, funny. Total recommend.
    • 5/5
      Picture this: the year is 1985. The Crimean War is still raging and Great Britain is in a reverse time warp. Instead of being behind the times they are way ahead. England is a futuristic place where time travel is common, the most common thing to clone is the resurrected Dodo bird (everyone has them as pets), and visitations to the pages of literature is child's play. Thursday Next is a Special Operative in literary detection where not much is supposed to happen (it's a desk job after all). Most crimes in involve Byronic forgeries and protests over Shakespeare's authenticity. That is until a minor character from a Dickens novel is found murdered outside the novel, changing the plot forever. That's just for starters. When Jane Eyre herself is plucked from Bronte's original manuscript and the kidnapper threatens to alter Great Britain's most beloved story, Thursday rises to the challenge to rescue Jane. It's no small task for the kidnapper is a former professor who once tried to seduce Thursday and seems to have godlike powers. To make matters worse, Thursday's mind is not 100% on the case as she is distracted by a heartbreaking secret in the form of an ex-lover she can neither escape nor forget.Fforde writes with cunning intention. Every chapter is riddled with wordplay, puns, literary allusions and trivia. With a names like Thursday Next, Hades Acheron, and Jack Schitt, you can just imagine the possibilities. Even the twins Jeff and Geoff got a giggle out of me. Because I am not up on pop culture I am sure some references went over my head.One of my favorite scenes is when Thursday and the before mentioned ex-lover attend a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III. Only this adaptation is more like The Rocky Horror Picture Show than serious theater in the round. The audience participation is hilarious. Another great moment is when Thursday's uncle is showing Thursday his latest inventions. The bookworms are the best.
    • 3/5
      This was a fun read... once I got into it and felt like I understood what was going on. I'm not sure if the blurb was misleading, or if the British style was more complicated than I expected, but when I first opened this book, I was thoroughly lost! I felt as if I was walking into the middle of a fully developed series in which I'd missed the previous books. Between references to wars that I didn't know (or perhaps didn't exist!), and unexplained job descriptions, this world is fully developed and it's not until about 100 pages in that it becomes comfortable.

      From then on, I loved it! Thursday is spunky, and the way she does what needs to be done, in spite of the rules, gives her this heroic, rebellious feel that makes the reader root for her even more! The othet charcters are fleshed out just enough to give you a sense of who they are, but with enough leeway to let the reader's imagination run rampant. And the names! Beyween literary references (Oswald Mandias, aka Ozzie Mandias, as in Ozymandias...) and names like Jack Schitt (say it aloud, I dare you), how can you not love the character names?

      On the downside, the charcters are a little superficial. Like I said, they're just fleshed out enough to not be totally two dimensional. Plus, there seem to be too many! Characters that seem important just kind of fade away (Spike) or get killed off (Styx), while new characters are introduced every few pages.

      The plot also meanders a bit. Sometimes key plot developments rumble past at lightning speeds, and then later we go on a wild chase on a completely unrelated tangent.

      Let us not forget the shifting temporal events: Thursday's father showing up at random moments to ask her history questions and her answers are constantly changing as history changes... This alone could confuse a reader who is not paying attention. Plus it has no relevance to the storyline except once, when her father's appearance stops time at a very convenient moment.

      Is this book enjoyable? I think so. But it's not exactly something I'd recommend for a beginning reader, or someone who isn't used to thinking critically while reading. For those who always read in depth, this is a light, semi-brainless read, as in, don't overthink it or you won't really like it! Just read it for the quirky aspect. Enjoy the puns and literary references. But don't take it seriously or you might just go mad...
    • 4/5
      This is the first book in the Tuesday Next series, and boy, am I excited to continue with it! Thursday Next is a 30-something LiteraTec for the SpecOps department in London, meaning she investigates all literature-related crimes. Thursday lives in w world where the Crimean War has been going on between England and Russia for the past 130+ years, ChronoGuard members (like her father) pop in and out of time, and dodos have been brought back from extinction. Oh, and Thursday's uncle invented a device that allows people to enter the world of any book they choose. All these details, plus many more where that came from, are what help to make this book a really fun and clever read, chock full of literary references. Fans of Jane Eyre (especially those who hate the ending) will definitely get a kick out of this book, although you do not need to have read the book for this one to make sense (I have yet to read Jane Eyre, and I was not lost at all). Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed parts of this book very, very much. Like the people dressed up for Hamlet (I think it was Hamlet) like it was Rocky Horror. It was very witty and original, but not enough for me to read more Jasper Fforde. Can't really give a real reason for my apapthy toward it.

      PS it was Richard III which is even more hilarious.
    • 4/5
      An alternate-present sci-fi crime drama with scads of literary allusions. The plot takes a while to get a full head of steam, but it wraps up cleanly and roundly at the end.

      If you have read Jane Eyre recently, I recommend waiting a bit. I had halfway forgotten Jane Eyre's plot so the elements of Eyre in The Eyre Affair seem to fit neatly and smoothly.
    • 4/5
      Fast paced bookish detective novell. It takes a while to get in to, but Thursday Next definitely won me over. I'll be looking for other Thursday Next stories.
    • 4/5
      What's not to love here? Clever wordplay, an obvious deep love of literature, a kitschy hard-boiled female spy, time travel, plasma guns... will certainly read more in the series!
    • 3/5
      Not bad but not as fun as I was expecting it to be. It was about three quarters into the book before there was really any plot surrounding Jane Eyre. Might read the next in the series but it can wait for a bit.
    • 4/5
      A totally unique and oddly wonderful beginning to a fascinating new series. A fab tale for the book lover and worth a look just for the brilliantly named characters. There is actually a character named Jack Schitt - seriously! This is a story however that you need to pay attention to. Also, as I am not the most intelligent creature in the world, I was seriously lost at times due to the uniqueness of the world and the style of writing. Best for someone with a knowledge and love of the classics
    • 3/5
      A combination of Alice in Wonderland and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • 5/5
      Fforde's re-imagination of crime novels is quite possibly my favorite re-imagination of all time. Thursday Next has to solve a highly dangerous and suspiciously charismatic madman from destroying one of the world's greatest pieces of literature. When a novel places literature that high on the priority list, I gotta love it. Anyhoo, this book made me reconsider Jane Eyre. At first, I hated her. But this book made me reconsider and now I'm not quite so sure anymore. I've put it back on my to- read list, which has gotten longer than I am tall. But check back later and in my Eyre review I'll tell you I initially hated Jane.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this, and am looking forward to the next in the series.
    • 3/5
      This is a book on a (the?) ‘Best 21 c. Fantasy Novels’ which is why I picked it up. I liked the way that literature is so important in this futuristic world. And I liked Thursday. The story itself was pretty engaging with some tiny bit of mystery and thrill. Mostly it felt more like a crime story centered around books. Fascinating, but crime solving/fighting has never been big on my reading likes. If it wasn’t centered around literature I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much as I did. I do give props for originality as it was the first of its kind I have read. I like to imagine what our world will turn out to be like and thus I do enjoy books that touch on the possibilities. Perhaps I might have gotten more out of the book if I had read Jane Eyre itself beforehand but I have not yet got to that classic. There was a lot of literary references and I’m sure I only caught half of them if that. Which is partly why I’m looking to read these popular books and the older ‘classic’ books. This book being one of the former, I’m glad I got to it. I am certainly looking forward to Jane Eyre, and William Shakespeare when I get to them as I have learned a lot about the two while listening to this particular book. Recommended to anyone who is a complete book nerd.
    • 4/5
      A government operative who investigates literary crimes gets pulled into a top-secret case involving a criminal who is invisible to cameras, can assume the appearance of anyone, and who is impervious to bullets. The alternate universe is divertingly multi-faith: there's steam-punk, the supernatural, time travel, historical and literary interference, corporate totalitarianism, a little film noir...The Eyre Affair is great fun to read. It's less of a "take classic literature, add steam-punk and shake" than it is an homage to the written word in general, including as many references to classic and popular culture as possible. You get the feeling Jasper Fforde reads his books after they're published, and laughs at his own jokes. And he should! They're quite funny.
    • 5/5
      The Eyre Affair follows a literary detective, Thursday Next, in the year 1985, as she tries to track down Acheron Hades, a notorious villain who is kidnapping characters from their books and holding them to ransom. I won’t say anything more about the plot other than it absolutely delivers a suspenseful and at some points surprising read with many twists and turns along the way.

      This book crosses so many genres that it is difficult to see which is the most prominent; detective, classic literature, murder mystery, science fiction, time travel? I think that in this novel, Jasper Fforde expertly crosses the boundaries between genres and provides a gripping story that would draw a reader of any preference into its pages. Sadly, I have not yet read Jane Eyre, but after reading this, I really think that this should go onto the long lists of books I need to read at some point.

      Having only read one other of Jasper Fforde’s books, Shades of Grey, and absolutely loving it, I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to fall in love with his writing style once again with this novel. The way he uses words to describe the scenery is perfect and really captures the time that this is set, 1985. Most of this book is told in first person perspective from Thursday Next’ point of view. I found that she, as the protagonist of this series, really grew as a character as the story progressed and the relationships that she developed with the other characters seemed real and believable. I absolutely loved Mycroft in this story. I found his eccentric personality and interesting inventions a real highlight and would hope that he appears in later instalments of this Thursday Next series.

      This is a book full of witty and humorous writing, which is beautifully written and there is nothing included without reason, which is something that I really like about Fforde’s writing. The premise itself is entirely gripping and suspenseful and the characters are loveable.

      I could rave about this all day so would definitely give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It is definitely one of my favourite books of the year so far and I would definitely recommend it. I will definitely be reading the next instalment in the series very soon.
    • 3/5
      People have been telling me from all over that I should read some of Fforde's work — that I'd love it, it was tailor-made for my tastes, etc. — so I finally got around to trying it. For the first half or two-thirds of this novel I agreed with them; by the end of the book, though, I found myself growing decidedly weary. It appeared to me that the author was suffering the same problem, because the number of misfiring conceits and tired wordplays seemed definitely to be far higher in the later pages; but it's possible this perception was just a product of my own ennui.

      In an alternative UK where literature occupies the same sort of status in society that organized religion does in places like the US and Iran, a young(ish) woman called Tuesday Next is a LiteraTec, a cop specializing in literary detection, chasing literary forgers and the like. (One legendarily unsuccessful forgery Tuesday mentions in passing was called Rime II: The Mariner Returneth, which had me giggling a lot.) She's not really prepared for it when she comes up against a murderous, unkillable super-Moriarty named Acheron Hades, who has kidnapped the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit with the intent of blackmailing society to meet his demands (yada, yada) through threats to alter bits of the manuscript and thereby all printed copies of the book. Or he could just destroy it. As the case progresses, so do Hades's crimes escalate, until he commits the unthinkable and abducts Jane Eyre from her own novel. To restore normality Tuesday must enter the book herself and form a pact with Rochester . . .

      Fforde has inventiveness to spare, both in wordplay and in all the trappings of his surrealistic alternative world. Perhaps that's the root of the problem I was referring to above: one begins to feel battered by the constant pow, pow, pow of superfluous ingenuity. The novel — at least for me — is like the guy at the party who initially cracks everyone up with his jokes but then keeps telling more and more of them long after
      everyone else has lost interest.

      Still, I have another Fforde novel waiting on my shelf, and I'll most certainly read it in due course. The joys of the first half of The Eyre Affair more than outweighed the doldrums of its later stages.
    • 4/5
      What a fun book! Clever, laugh at loud funny and I loved the idea of a world where books are so important that doing a Rocky Horror production of Richard III is a weekly event. If only...