Top Ten Tuesday: Me, Myself, and I

This week's prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Book Titles that Describe Me and My Life."  I had a lot of fun figuring out ten picks for this!  Some are fiction and some are non-fiction, and they range all over the genres, so I've included just a smidgeon of info for each of them.

A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer (PG-13) -- murder mystery set during a British Christmas house party (note: this is not Regency-era historical fiction like most of Heyer's books)

Grateful American by Gary Sinese (PG) -- memoir by actor Gary Sinese about his life and the ways that the American military and being an American have impacted him, and how he has chosen to try to give back to his country and its defenders

Holy Hygge by Jamie Erickson (G) -- nonfiction book about how to make your home a haven for your family and for others, and how to use that coziness to reflect your faith and share it with others

I'd Rather be Reading by Anne Bogel (PG) -- nonfiction book about what it's like to love books

Imagination Redeemed by Gene Edward Veith and Matthew P. Ristuccia (PG-16) -- nonfiction look at ways that Christians can use their imagination while also glorifying and obeying God

In the Company of Sherlock Holmes edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger (PG-13) -- collection of short stories by various modern mystery authors, all of the stories either about or relating somehow to Sherlock Holmes

A Little Persuaded by Kendra E. Ardnek (G) -- last book in the Austen Fairy Tales series, it retells both "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Anderson and Persuasion by Jane Austen

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (PG-16) -- second book in the Thursday Next series of hilarious book-lover fantasy

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler (PG-13) -- four classic hardboiled mystery novellas starring Philip Marlowe

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (R) -- fictionalized biography of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of England's King Edward IV

How about you?  Did you do a Top Ten Tuesday list this week?  If so, please share a link!  If not, what book titles can you think of that describe you or your life?

Top Ten Tuesday: Be Kind, Rewind

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Rewind: pick a previous topic that you missed or would like to re-do/update."  My pick is a prompt from July of 2018: Books That Are Linked to Specific Memories/Moments In Your Life. 

I link memories to objects.  This is one reason I own so many physical copies of books -- reading one over again often brings back the memories of the previous time(s) I read that book.  Of course, a lot of books just remind me of sitting on my couch or on the swing in our backyard, as those are where I tend to read the most.  But some books remind me very vividly of the place or time when I read them.  Here are ten fifteen of those that cover the past 20+ years:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes -- I remember reading this while curled up on a fancy couch by a fire in the lobby of a Michigan hotel one winter evening.  Christmas was always a very busy and tiring time for my parents because my dad was a pastor and my mom was in charge of the music for the children's Christmas program at church every year.  So we would often do some kind of overnight getaway a day or two after Christmas as a family.  Just check into a hotel within an hour or two's drive, somewhere with an indoor swimming pool and hot tub.  One night of swimming, a hot tub, and getting to watch an old TV show or two on Nick-at-Night (we didn't have cable at home) really refreshed all of us.  One year, the hotel we stayed at had a fireplace with a real fire going in their lobby, and we all hung out there for a bit, reading and enjoying the ambience.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas -- I remember taking my library copy along to the orthodontist when I was eleven years old, and insisting on taking it into the exam room with me so I could read while waiting for the orthodontist to come in and adjust my teeth.  I had read a radio-play adaptation of just one small part of this book in a literature book for school, and I fell absolutely in love with it.  I convinced my mom to let me check out the real book from the library, and I read the whole thing.  Didn't understand the hashish stuff or some of the other, more adult subtextual matter, but I very much understood the plot, characterizations, and so on.  It's been one of my top favorite books ever since.

The Man in the Box by Marylois Dunn -- I found this book on the shelves in the junior fiction section of our North Carolina library, quite at random, and became somewhat obsessed with it.  In fact, I loved it so much, I wrote a little poem about how wonderful it was and tucked it inside the library copy when I returned it.  I don't know if the librarians didn't notice it, or thought it was sweet and left it in there, but I know that poem stayed inside their copy for years.  I know because I used to check to see if the book was on the shelves whenever I visited the library, and then see if the poem was still inside, and it always was!

The Princess Bride by William Goldman -- Although I'd loved the movie for years by then, I had never read the book until a friend gave it to me for Christmas my first year of college.  I remember reading the book on the plane when I flew home for Christmas break and having such a hard time containing my laughter because I didn't want to annoy my seatmates!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- I first read this book in my family's car on the way back to college to begin my sophomore year.  I quick bought it at a bookstore before we left because I had heard that Mel Gibson was in talks to make a movie version, and I was quite a Gibson girl at that point, so that intrigued me.  I was absolutely enraptured by the book, and it's still really the only dystopian novel I enjoy.

Dracula by Bram Stoker -- I bought a cheap paperback copy of Dracula at a bookstore in Toronto, Canada, while on choir tour in May of 2000.  I'd become obsessed with vampires during my sophomore year of college, thanks to the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel, and I decided I really ought to read the most-famous vampire book.  I read it while sitting on our tour bus, driving from one concert stop to the next, then the next, and so on.  I actually didn't care for the book much, but I stuck with it because I didn't have many other books packed.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde -- For four years after we finished college and got married, my husband and I both worked third shift.  I worked at Walmart, stocking shelves all night long.  Because I worked full-time, I got a full hour for my lunch break, and I would spend my lunches in the breakroom nibbling a sandwich and reading.  Reading, reading, reading.  I remember laughing aloud over this book so often there, and how amused my coworkers in the breakroom would be because I found the book so funny.  They used to say I read books the way they watched movies, which amused me because I once had a literature professor tell someone I watched movies the way other people read books.  Those both make sense, though, as I experience stories in both mediums basically the same way.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King -- That same college professor recommended this book to me, but I didn't have time to read for fun while in college because I took a lot of reading-heavy courses in literature and history.  So I wrote this down in a little book where I kept my list of things I'd like to read someday.  I found it in our small-town Wisconsin library a few years later and was absolutely delighted with it.  But my main memory of this book is buying a copy in a mall bookstore in Connecticut years later and rereading it in little snatches while my toddler sat on my lap to watch his daily dose of VeggieTales Silly Songs on YouTube.  I can't hear "Monkey" without being immediately reminded of this book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling -- I pre-ordered my copy of the final Harry Potter book, and the bookseller shipped it a week early by mistake!  Scholastic Books offered me a free Harry Potter t-shirt and a gift card if I would agree not to read it before its release date, and I agreed.  I used that gift card to buy a boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia, and I honored my agreement not to read it before the day it released.  I was still working third shift in 2007, I was pregnant with my first baby, and I had Tuesday nights off.  So when I woke up around 5pm, I started to read, and I read all night long while my husband was away at work, and I finished the book before we went to sleep around 9am the next morning.  It was glorious to just immerse myself so fully in that world.  And then I didn't have to worry about any of my co-workers sharing spoilers when I went back to work the next night!

Middlemarch by George Eliot -- I took this book along to the hospital when I had to have my gall bladder out.  I remember getting wheeled to and from the imaging center so they could take an MRI to see if I really had to remove it or not, and I was just merrily reading this chunkster paperback while they pushed me up one hall and down the next.  The nurses and techs and other hospital staff had a great time teasing me about how I must think I was going to be there a long, long time if I brought such a massive book with me.  It was a cheery touchstone in what was an otherwise unexpected and stressful event.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell -- I basically never stay up past my bedtime reading.  I never pulled a single all-nighter in college.  When I am tired, I sleep.  However!  I took my kids to visit my parents a few years ago, and brought this book along.  It was my first time reading it, and one night when I went to bed, I was about two-thirds of the way through the book.  I figured I would read to the end of my current chapter and then go to sleep.  Except, I just couldn't quit reading, and I ended up staying awake until 3 am and finishing the book.  Which I regretted in the morning when my little ones woke me up at 7am, ready for breakfast and playtime.  The book will forever remind me of my parent's guest bedroom in their North Carolina home.

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler -- I bought this at a really amazing Barnes and Noble in Baltimore and happened to take it along when I visited a podiatrist because I had to have a toenail removed.  I was very glad to have this larger-than-usual paperback along to focus on and shield my gaze from what the podiatrist was doing.

Borden Chantry by Louis L'Amour -- I bought a lovely, battered vintage paperback copy of this at a hole-in-the-wall used bookstore up in the Shenandoah Valley while we were on a family vacation last year, and read the whole thing while cozied up in the cabin we had rented.  Which is now my gold standard for where and how to read a western, to be honest.  They hit different when you're in a cabin built in the 1700s and snuggled up under a soft throw while curled up on an antique loveseat.  

The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini -- I took this book along to the pool while my kids swam there last summer, when I couldn't swim because I had broken my arm and my surgical incision hadn't healed yet.  If I couldn't splash around in the water, at least I could read about adventure on the high seas!

Beauty by Robin McKinley -- I read this book on the flight home after an idyllic visit to my best friend earlier this month.  I finished it just before landing again, and the happiness of the book's ending got all tangled up with my joy over such an incredible visit and my gladness at being home with my husband and kids again.  

Do you also have vivid memories of where you read particular books?  What did you do for Top Ten Tuesday this week?  Please share!

Top Ten Tuesday: And Then a Heroine Comes Along

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Favorite Heroines."  I've decided to list mine in alphabetical order by first name because I am late getting this post finished and I don't want to take the time and mental energy to figure out whom I like best.  I'm also going to list a few attributes I associate with each of them, though, so you can get an idea of what they are like!

Anne Elliot in Persuasion by Jane Austen -- shy, quiet, sensible, loyal, kind, tenacious, bookish

Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables books by L. M. Montgomery -- quirky, imaginative, bookish, starry-eyed, stubborn

Constance Kopp from Girl Waits with Gun and the rest of the Kopp Sisters series by Amy Stewart -- sensible, down-to-earth, brave, stalwart, capable, determined

Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling -- intelligent, loyal, courageous, level-headed, resourceful, curious, bookish

Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte -- strong-willed, strong-minded, indomitable, resilient, affectionate

Jo March from Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott -- independent, smart, imaginative, bookish, understanding, stubborn, resourceful, dependable

Mary Russell from The Beekeeper's Apprentice and the rest of the series featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King -- willful, intelligent, gutsy, bookish, indomitable, skillful

Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair and the rest of the series by Jasper Fforde -- trustworthy, diligent, determined, curious, strong-willed

Trixie Belden from the Trixie Belden series by Kathryn Kenny -- smart, loyal, curious, pugnacious, determined

Valancy Stirling from The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery -- bright, vibrant, bookish, diligent, kind, forthright

Well, from my listing of random character traits and descriptions, I think we can see the sorts of traits I value in fictional characters!  There are a lot of similarities here, aren't there?

Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite Reads of 2022

I had a wonderful reading year in 2022!  To celebrate it, I've rounded up my "Favorite Books of 2022" to share with you for Top Ten Tuesday today, since that's the prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl this week.

As usual, I'm actually sharing two lists here -- my top ten favorite new reads and my top ten favorite rereads.  Since about a quarter of my reading is rereading, and I tend to revisit my favorites a lot, if I didn't separate the lists, I'd mostly be sharing rereads and that doesn't seem fair to new reads, so... two lists it is!

My Ten Favorite New Reads:

1. Borden Chantry (PG) by Louis L'Amour -- western, mystery, lawman, amateur detective, straight-forward storytelling

2. A Little Beside You (PG-13) by Jenni Sauer -- low-sci sci-fi, fairy tale retelling, gentle bruiser for a hero, cozy vibes, lots of knitting and baking

3. In the Glorious Fields (PG) by Emily Hayse -- magical western, King Arthur retelling, truly heroic heroes and heroines, gorgeous scenery, trilogy (book 3)

4. The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden (G) by Karina Yan Glaser -- family, friendship, city life, gardening, multigenerational friendship, multiracial family, homelessness, found family

5. Isabella's Daughter (PG-13) by Charity Bishop -- history-based fiction, indomitable heroine, castle life, royalty, intrigue

6. Emmazel (G) by Kendra E. Ardnek -- fantasy, fairy tale retelling, Jane Austen retelling, cozy vibes, gardening, female friendship, talking cat

7. Song of the Valley (PG) by Britt Howard -- modern west setting, romantic, enemies-to-lovers, falling for your brother's best friend, horses, helping others

8. Cranford (G) by Elizabeth Gaskell -- shabby genteel cottagecore, female friendship, multigenerational friendship, cozy vibes, slice-of-life

9. Swallowdale (G) by Arthur Ransome -- adventurous kids, sailboats, exploring, camping, friendship

10. Laertes (PG-16) by Carly Stevens -- dark academia, Roaring Twenties, Europe, Shakespeare retelling, male friendship, supportive siblings

My Ten Favorite Rereads:

1. The Blue Castle (PG) by L. M. Montgomery -- transformation, new life, beautiful nature, cozy cottage, island life, happily ever after

2. The Eyre Affair (PG-16) by Jasper Fforde -- book-based fantasy, literature love, alternate universe, Jane Eyre, quirky humor

3. The Long Goodbye (PG-16) by Raymond Chandler -- hard-boiled mystery, male friendship, brooding atmosphere, dark vibes, private detective

4. Kidnapped (PG) by Robert Louis Stevenson -- Scottish Highlands, escape scenes, male friendship, mismatched buddies, political intrigue, reclaimed inheritance, adventure galore

5. Bloodlines (R) by Jan Burke -- triple timeline, hard-boiled mystery, intergenerational friendship, mentors, amateur detective, Irish-American characers

6. The Beautiful Ones (PG) by Emily Hayse -- magical western, King Arthur retelling, truly heroic heroes and heroines, gorgeous scenery, trilogy (book 2)

7. Lost in a Good Book (PG-16) by Jasper Fforde -- book-based fantasy, literature love, alternate universe, Miss Havisham, quirky humor

8. These War-Torn Hands (PG) by Emily Hayse -- magical western, King Arthur retelling, truly heroic heroes and heroines, gorgeous scenery, trilogy (book 1)

9. Loving Isaac (PG-13) by Heather Kaufman -- parenting, autism rep, hesitant romance, turtles, abusive past relationships, sisterhood, Midwestern vibes, strong Christian faith

10. Ophelia (PG-16) by Lisa Klein -- medieval, historical fiction, Shakespeare retelling, first love, young adult, coming of age, secret marriage

Okay!  I hope that gives you some idea of what each of these twenty books are about -- maybe even got you interested in reading them.  Have you read any of them?  What were your favorite books this year?  Do tell!

"Lost in a Good Book" by Jasper Fforde

After rereading The Eyre Affair last month, I simply had to continue with the series.  These books are so much nerdy, bookish, readerly fun!  I must admit I haven't laughed aloud as much over them as I did when I first read them, years and years ago, but that's okay.  I still love them.   And I did laugh now and then.

Thursday Next has a lot on her plate in this one.  Her dad's being hunted, her husband's in danger, her boss keeps yelling at her, her aunt and uncle disappear on purpose, and she discovers she has a major life change on the way.  Also, Goliath Corp. decides to blackmail her.  And then she gets apprenticed to Miss Havisham.  And has to stop the world from ending.

I can't even begin to make this book make sense in a review.  I promise it makes a kind of cool and surreal sense while you read it, okay?  The ending has a cliffhanger, so I'm really going to have to reread the next book, The Well of Lost Plots.  And then I expect I'll reread Something Rotten too, because it's got lots of Hamlet in it :-D

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for some quite bad language, some innuendo and suggestive dialog, bits of violence here and there -- the bad language isn't pervasive, but I still wouldn't let a young teen read it.

"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde (again)

I loved rereading this book!  I first read it in 2004, and I know I've read it at least once between then and now, but it's been at least a decade since my last journey into this wacky alternate universe of literary awesomeness.  This was long overdue.

It's hard to describe this book.  It's set in 1985 in an alternate universe where the Crimean War is still raging, people care about literature the way people in our world care about sports teams, and there are people who can bend time.  Also, dodos.  Also, portals into the insides of books.  Thursday Next is a government agent dealing with forged books and other literary crimes.  A really evil bad guy named Acheron Hades wreaks some havoc, Thursday runs into her former fiancé Landen Parke-Laine, Jane Eyre gets kidnapped, and it all turns out happily. 

Plus, Mr. Rochester is a total sweetheart, Jane Eyre is calm and wise outside her book as well as in, and Thursday Next gets to engineer a happy ending for Jane and Rochester, who then return the favor. 

This isn't making much sense.  You'll just have to read the book to understand it.

Particularly Good Bits:

Ordinary adults don't like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds (p. 69).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for some very bad language, some innuendo, and bits of violence here and there.  The language is the real reason I would not rate this PG-13.

A-Z Bookish Questions

Like half the blogs I read have done this, including Flowers of Quiet Happiness, Lady of the Manor, and Reading in the Dark.  I finally have time!  Hooray!  I've been wanting to do this meme for like two months now!


Author you've read the most books from:  Probably Rex Stout.  I love his Nero Wolfe mysteries!  And he was a very prolific author.

Best sequel ever:  I don't know about "best ever," but Christopher Paolini's Brisingr was sooooooooooo much better than Eragon and Eldest.

Currently reading: Middlemarch by George Eliot for the first time.

Drink of choice while reading:  Hot chocolate.

E-reader or physical book:  Physical book.  I don't own an e-reader.

Fictional character you probably would have actually dated in high school:  I would have loved to have gone out with Ponyboy Curtis from  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.

Glad you gave this book a chance:  Captain Wentworth's Diary by Amanda Grange.  I wasn't sure I'd like Austen pastiches, but I discovered an author I now like so much!

Hidden gem book:  An Antic Disposition by Alan Gordon.  Brilliant retelling of Hamlet that utilizes elements from the original Scandinavian story of Amleth.

Interesting bookish question you wish this meme include:  What's a book you wish you could un-read?  For me, it's Longbourn by Jo Baker.  Awful mess.

Just finished:  Betsy-Tacy by Maude Hart Lovelace -- for the first time!

Kind of books you won't read:  Smut.

Longest book you've read:  Probably Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  Unless you count The Lord of the Rings as one book.

Major book hangover because of:  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  I was so loathe to leave the world that I promptly read it all over again.

Number of bookcases you own:  Seven full-size, six smaller.

One book you read multiple times:  ONE?  Okay.  I reread The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin every few years.  I have to let at least 4 years go by between readings so I forget some things and have some surprises while I read.

Preferred place to read:  My teal rocking chair.  It was my grandma's, and passed down to me when we got married.  It's sooooo comfy.

Quote you like from a book you read:

Reading regret:  Not having more time to read.

Series you started and need to finish:  Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.

Three of your all time favorite books:  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, The Black Stallion by Walter Farley -- those are my top three.

Unapologetic fangirl for:  Raymond Chandler.  Absolute favorite author!

Very excited for this release more than all the others:  Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King -- the next novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes!

Worst bookish habit:  Turning up my nose at books just because they're popular.  Sometimes they're actually good.

X marks the spot:  Is this supposed to be about bookmarks?  I love bookmarks!  I used to collect them, and I still have loads.  My favorites include a metal bookmark with a picture of Boromir on the front and a Sherlock Holmes one I made myself that bears the quotation "Education never ends, Watson.  It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last."

Your latest book purchase:  Just bought The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook used online this morning.

Zzzz snatcher book:  I remember lying awake thinking about Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle while I was in the middle of it.

"Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde

Some of you, having read the book title at the head of this post, may have been horribly aghast that someone whose blog you read would ever read That Book.  But then you looked at the author name, and then you saw the book cover image, and by now you've realized that I did not read That Book.  I read this book, an off-beat, speculative fiction kind of novel that defies easy description.

Shades of Grey takes place several centuries in the future, in a strange world few but Fforde could have imagined.  There are flocks of killer swans.  Everyone is terrified of the dark, because very few people can see in it.  Making new spoons is illegal.  And all of society is ordered according to a hierarchy of how much of what color you can see.  People can only see one color, or no color at all, and how much color you can see determines how important you are.

Some kind of cataclysmic event (referred to as The Something That Happened, and never explained in the book) is responsible for changing an advanced version of our world into this strange new one.  Weirdness and mysteries abound, and Eddie Russett, a young Red too curious for his own good, slowly figures some of them out.  He also falls in love with a violent Grey named Jane and gets eaten by a tree. 

By this point, you already know whether or not you'd like this book -- those last two paragraphs have made you either intrigued or annoyed.  So I'm not gong to make any recommendations here.  This was not my favorite Jasper Fforde book, but it wasn't my least-favorite either.  Fforde is clearly making a statement about the arbitrary hierarchies of today's world and the way we treat nonconformists, and probably several other points that I was too dizzied by his wackiness to catch.  In the end, I felt like it was too silly to be a serious novel, and too serious to be a silly novel.  Still, it was a fun read.

Particularly Good Bits:

I didn't set out to discover a truth.  I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility.  But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind (p. 1).

I returned home, made sure Jane wasn't in the house, carefully filed the telegram in my valise and then hid under the bed for half an hour before making my way down to the sports fields (p. 254).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for adult dialog and situations (sex is always called "you know," but you know what "you know" stands for).

This is my ninth book read and reviewed for the I Love Library Books challenge.

"The Last Dragonslayer" by Jasper Fforde

It's been a while since I read one of Jasper Fforde's books, and when I stumbled on this one at the library while looking for something entirely different, I knew I should give it a go.  After all, I love most of his Thursday Next novels so much I own them.  This being his first YA novel, I was curious to see how much of his quirky style translated to writing for a younger audience.

Turns out a lot of it.  This isn't actually set in the same alternate universe as the Thursday Next books, but it's got some similarities.  Only, instead of people who can jump in and out of books, you have magicians and dragons and berserkers.  And lots and lots of silly names, zany oddments of world-building, and sly digs at real world obsessions with silly celebrities.  No Toast Marketing Board, but I kind of expected it to crop up somewhere.

The protagonist here, sixteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange, also has a lot of similarities to Thursday Next, being intelligent and courageous and snarky.  I thought she lacked a little of Thursday's sparkle, but she made up for it with a startling amount of common sense.  She basically runs a sort of magical home improvement company, but winds up being the Last Dragonslayer and trying to stop a war, save a dragon from being slain, and keep all the world's magic from draining away.  I'm not going to try to explain anything more than that because really, either you'll like this book or you will find it too silly and odd, and only you can decide that for yourself.

So I'll just say that the magic in this book doesn't involve written-out spells or lists of ingredients for magic potions.  The magicians do the magic, we just see what happens.  In case you were wondering.  Visit Jasper Fforde's website to learn more -- this is the first book of a series of 4, and the third was released this year.

First Sentence:

It looked set to become even hotter by the afternoon, just when the job was becoming more fiddly and needed extra concentration (p. 1).

Particularly Good Bits:

Working with those versed in the Mystical Arts was sometimes like trying to knit with wet spaghetti:  just when you thought you'd gotten somewhere, it all came to pieces in your hands (p. 2).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some tense and exciting moments.

"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde

I just read an astounding new book: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Well, it's not 100% new; it first got published in 2002. But considering that the last book I read was published in 1897, it's pretty new. There's a sequel out now: Lost in a Good Book, which I plan to read as soon as the new bookstore in town gets it in for me.

Anyway, about The Eyre Affair. It's incredibly hard to describe, but I'll try. It's set in 1985, but not the 1985 we knew...in this 1985, things like time travel and pet dodos are common. The main character, Thursday Next, is a literature detective, and she eventually winds up inside the book Jane Eyre, helping Mr. Rochester rescue Jane from the evil genius who kidnapped her. You can see how this would appeal to me--I dig scifi/fantasy, and what wouldn't I give to step inside some of my favorite books (of which Jane Eyre is obviously one)? It's a well-written book, with great bits like this:

"We try to make art perfect because we never manage it in real life..." (pg 271)

Or here's a section where the character Hobbes from the book interacts with the character Grace Poole in Jane Eyre, as he prepares to kidnap its title character:
"I'm, um, with Mr. Mason," he stammered.

"Rubbish," she replied, staring at him dangerously.
"I want Jane Eyre," he stammered.
"So does Mr. Rochester," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "But
he doesn't even kiss her until page one hundred and eighty-one." (pg 296)

See the fun possibilities?

(Originally posted on Hamlette's Soliloquy on Nov. 18, 2004.)