Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Series #2) » (~)

A former Hollywood film exec, Jasper Fforde has switched from the silver screen to the page, earning a reputation as a "grown up J. K. Rowling" with his literary fantasies The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book.

Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan. But whose? and why?

The New York Times

It may be that Fforde has succeeded in doing for the anxieties of 21st-century book lovers -- nagged by the feeling that perhaps they aren't getting as swept away by books as they used to -- what Helen Fielding did for the anxieties of the 30-something single urban female. In attempting to come up with an adult Harry Potter, he may also have stumbled across that other Holy Grail of modern fiction, the male-friendly (or at least the gender-neutral) Bridget Jones -- which, for everyone but Fforde's accountant, is a fairly terrifying prospect. — Bruno Maddox