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The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next…
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The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel (edition 2004)

by Jasper Fforde

Series: Thursday Next (3)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
7,9841821,087 (4.04)320
Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ... With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.'… (more)
Member:riahjoyt2003
Title:The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel
Authors:Jasper Fforde
Info:Viking Adult (2004), Hardcover, 400 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:imaginative fiction

Work Information

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

  1. 90
    The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (TomWaitsTables)
    TomWaitsTables: It's the novel Thurday was living in, while on the Character Exchange Program.
  2. 10
    The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (bell7)
    bell7: Similarly a zany tale with literary references and footnotes.
  3. 10
    The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature by Ben Segal (bertilak)
  4. 11
    Who's Afraid of Beowulf? by Tom Holt (Dr.Science)
    Dr.Science: The English author Tom Holt is relatively unknown in America, but very popular in England. If you enjoy Jasper Fforde or Christopher Moore you will most certainly enjoy Tom Holt's wry sense of English humor and the absurd. He has written a number of excellent books including Expecting Someone Taller, and Flying Dutch, but they may be difficult to find at your library or bookstore.… (more)
  5. 00
    Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines (TomWaitsTables)
  6. 11
    Fables, Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover by Bill Willingham (TomWaitsTables)
  7. 01
    Fables, Vol. 01: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham (TomWaitsTables)
  8. 01
    Fables, Vol. 02: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham (TomWaitsTables)
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» See also 320 mentions

English (175)  French (3)  Spanish (1)  Dutch (1)  Italian (1)  German (1)  All languages (182)
Showing 1-5 of 175 (next | show all)
Still enjoying this series but I think this might have been my least favorite so far. I will read the next book and still like Thursday Next a whole bunch. One of my favorite characters in a fantasy series.

( )
  cdaley | Nov 2, 2023 |
This is the third in the Thursday Next series and I found it tough finding my bearings not having read the previous two. Fforde has obviously created a world in the first two and it was confusing coming in cold. While Fforde's world is full of fun nuggets and clever winks to classic literature, I found that he often overdoes it, to the detriment of the plot (ironically) and to the characters whom I found rather flat and static. I often found my interest waning.
Certainly original but too lengthy and convoluted. ( )
  Cecilturtle | Sep 15, 2023 |
The Didius Falco series was so entertaining on audio that I thought I'd try a Thursday Next. Not so wonderful to listen to. Part of the problem was that I left the speed on neutral; when I turned it up just to 110% it went much better, but still it wasn't the right book for the medium. Oh well. Lots of cute names, a serious threat to reading averted (very like the restrictions on ebooks instituted by publishers for libraries, as it happens), but it took too long to listen to. I'm sure I could have read it in text in a third the time. ( )
  ffortsa | Jul 4, 2023 |
(AUDIO), book 3 of the series. In this one, Thursday is becoming a full-on agent in Jursifiction, her mentor is Mrs. Havisham, she's pregnant, her husband has been eradicated when he was 2, she's living in an unread book, and helping deal with some corporate shenanigans with the impending release of BOOK version 9, the operating system that runs all books. To say nothing of the protests that the Nursery Rhyme characters are having in support of better working conditions. As usually a very fun, and funny read. ( )
  mahsdad | Jun 30, 2023 |
After what is (according to Goodreads) my 3rd reading of this book, I'm pretty sure it is actually my favourite of the series. Thursday takes refuge in the Well of Lost Plots, which is sort of hard to explain but it's where fiction goes to be born and to die. She interacts with Generics--fictional characters under development--and Jurisfiction agents both human and fictional. Her personal priority is to remove a mindworm that is causing her to forget her eradicated husband, and her professional mission is to find out what is wrong with UltraWord, the new fiction reading system, and solve several high-profile murders. As usual, Fforde tells this story with absurd imagination and a healthy dose of social commentary. I believe this rounds out the initial trilogy quite nicely--my memory is that the series sort of declines a bit in subsequent volumes, but that might just be Aornis Hades, messing with my mind. ( )
  karenchase | Jun 14, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 175 (next | show all)
In Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots, Fforde gets a bit bogged down in all the details of the fictional universe.
added by Katya0133 | editYale Review, David Galef (Oct 1, 2008)
 
Fforde's third novel featuring English sleuth Thursday Next is an interesting, enjoyable mix of detective story, fantasy, and literature.
added by Katya0133 | editSchool Library Journal, Ted Westervelt (Jun 1, 2004)
 
Like anchovies, Wagner, and Helmut Newton: will greatly appeal to people with unusual tastes--and befuddle everyone else.
added by Katya0133 | editKirkus Reviews (Feb 23, 2004)
 
Fforde has settled comfortably into series mode, producing another fun romp in an alternate universe where books are more real than reality.
added by Katya0133 | editLibrary Journal, Devon Thomas (Jan 15, 2004)
 
Fforde's sidesplitting sendup of an increasingly antibookish society is a sheer joy.
added by Katya0133 | editPublishers Weekly, Jeff Zaleski (Dec 15, 2003)
 

» Add other authors (12 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Fforde, Jasperprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Koen, ViktorCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rostant, LarryCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Thomas, MarkCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
A wise man wants for only nourishing cabbage soup;
seek not other things.  Except perhaps a toaster.
    --  from the teachings of St Zvlkx

. . . . . the wisdom of St Zvlks is wholly owned by
                      the Toast Marketing Board . . . . .
Dedication
For Mari
who makes the torches burn brighter
First words
Making one's home in an unpublished novel wasn't without its compensations.
Quotations
...First there was OralTrad, upgraded ten thousand years later by the rhyming (for easier recall) OralTradPlus. For thousands of years this was the only Story Operating System and it is still in use today. The system branched in two about twenty thousand years ago ; on one side with CaveDaubPro) forerunner of PaintplusV2.3, GrecianUrnV1.2 SculptMarble V1.4 and the latest all encompassing SuperArtisticExpression-5). The other strand, the Picto-Phonetic Storytelling Systems, started with ClayTablet V2.1 and went through several competing systems (WaxTablet, Papyrus, VelliumPlus before merging into the award winning SCROLL, which was upgraded eight times to V3.3 before being swept aside by the all-new and clearly superior BOOK V1. Stable, easy to store and transport, compact and with a workable index, BOOK led the way for nearly eighteen hundred years...
'Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren't you working on this?' // Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. // 'Indeed. The use of had had and that that has to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the ImaginoTransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.' // 'Go on.' // 'It's mostly an unlicensed usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty-three times, all but then unapproved. Pilgrim's Progress may also be a problem owing to its had had / that that ratio.' // 'So what's the problem in Progress?' // 'That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.' // 'Hmm,' said the Bellman. 'I thought had had had had TGC's approval for use in Dickens? What's the problem?' // 'Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,' explained Lady Cavendish. 'You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.' // 'So the problem with that other that that was that--?' // 'That that other-other that that had had approval.' // 'Okay,' said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, 'let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim's Progress, which had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC's approval?' // There was a very long pause. // 'Right,' said the Bellman with a sigh. 'That's it for the moment...'
"Well, Mother was very upset about it and I think you should apologize."
"Okay, next time -- wait a moment, I'm dead -- I can't apologize to anyone. You apologize for me."
"Accept with good grace that which is given with good grace."
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ... With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.'

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