On the HahaFiction shelf
The Eyre Affair
Thursday Next · Book 1
Audiobook available · 12 hr 13 min
Literary detective Thursday Next works in a version of 1985 Britain where books inspire the kind of devotion usually reserved for celebrities. When a criminal steals Jane Eyre from her own novel, Thursday must follow him into fiction to protect the story.
From the publisher’s blurb
“The first novel in the renowned Thursday Next series”Read the full description at Penguin Books description
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What makes it funny?
Thursday describes time travel in the practical language of employment benefits: temporal police can retire to whichever era they prefer. Her father literally stops clocks, while she worries about transfers and promotion in literary law enforcement.
The comedy at work
Fforde gives impossible events a familiar administrative setting. Thursday takes her job seriously even when it concerns fictional people, and classic literature has become mass entertainment, complete with author trading cards.
Try this if…
Bookish jokes reward an interest in classic literature, while the investigation gives the fantasy a clear pursuit. Readers who enjoy wandering through an invented society may welcome the episodic structure; Publishers Weekly found that it sometimes slows the action.
Good to know
The silliness includes a more painful thread: Thursday remembers combat and deaths in the Crimean War, which is still being fought in this Britain. The opening also contains profanity.
A few distinguishing details
- A detective who can enter a novel
- Time travel with employment benefits
- Classic literature as popular entertainment
More funny private eye & detective
Sources & further reading
- Opening excerpt
Reading sample
- Publisher
Publisher
- Publishers Weekly review
Review
- Apple Books audiobook
Book information
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