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Jasper Fforde, the acclaimed SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, invites you to imagine a world where your position in society depended on what bit of the colour spectrum you could see... It's the UK, but not as we know it: civilisation has rebuilt after an unspoken 'Something that Happened' five hundred years before. Society is now colour-based, the strict levels of hierarchy dictated by the colours you can see, and the economy, health service and citizen's aspirations all dominated by visual colour, run by the shadowy National Colour in far-off Emerald City. Out on the fringes of Red Sector West, Eddie Russett and Jane Grey have discovered that all is neither fair nor truthful within their cosy environment, and currently face trumped up charges that will see them die of the fatally soporific tones within the Green Room. Negotiating the narrow boundaries of the Rules within their society, Jane and Edward must find out the truth of their world: What is it, where is it and even when it is. As they unpeel the lies that cloak their existence they come to the worrying conclusion that they may not be alone: That there might be a Somewhere Else beyond the sea, and more, Someone Else living there - and observing them all, purposefully unseen. Red Side Story delves into the strictures of a society imposed on itself by itself, immovable dogma and the spirit of humans trying to love and survive and make sense of a world that makes no sense at all. Only it does, of course - you just have to look harder, look further, and forget everything you've ever been told. 'Fforde's books are more than an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted . . . and are embellished with the rich details of a Dickens or Pratchett' Independent 'No summaries can do justice to the sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality' The Times 'Brilliantly inventive' Mail on Sunday
"Reads like a crazed cross between Watership Down and Nineteen Eighty-Four." --The Guardian "Every book of Fforde's seems to be a cause for celebration." -- Charles Yu, The New York Times Book Review on Early Riser A new stand-alone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Early Riser and the Thursday Next series England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before. A family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cozy little village in Middle England where life revolves around summer fetes, jam making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Best Kept Village awards. No sooner have the rabbits arrived than the villagers decide they must depart, citing their propensity to burrow and breed, and their shameless levels of veganism. But Mrs Constance Rabbit is made of sterner stuff, and her and her family decide they are to stay. Unusually, their neighbors--longtime resident Peter Knox and his daughter, Pippa--decide to stand with them . . . . and soon discover that you can be a friend to rabbits or humans, but not both. With a blossoming romance, acute cultural differences, enforced rehoming to a MegaWarren in Wales, and the full power of the ruling United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party against them, Peter and Pippa are about to question everything they had ever thought about their friends, their nation, and their species. An inimitable blend of satire, fantasy, and thriller, The Constant Rabbit is the latest dazzlingly original foray into Jasper Fforde's ever-astonishing creative genius.
Imagine a world where your position in society depended on what bit of the colour spectrum you could see. This is the world inhabited by Eddie Russett (red, middle-level) and Jane Grey (monochromatic, lowest in society). Eddie and Jane must negotiate the delicate Chromatic politics of society to find out what the 'Something that Happened' actually was, how society got to be this way, and crucially, is there Somewhere Else beyond their borders - and if there is, could there be Someone Else, too, someone whose unseen hand has been guiding the fortunes and misfortunes of the nation for the past 500 years? It's a tale of a young couple's thirst for justice and answers in an implacably rigid society, where the prisoners are also the guards, and cages of convention bind the citizens to only one way of thinking - or suffer the consequences. . ..
Imagine a black and white world where colour is a commodity . . . Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane - a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey ... If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels, neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.
The first book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Always ridiculous, often hilarious ... blink and you miss a vital narrative leap. There are shades of Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll, 'Clockwork Orange' and '1984'. And that's just for starters' - Time Out Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend. There is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's MR Big. Acheron Hades has been kidnapping certain characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing. Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. Perhaps today just isn't going to be Thursday's day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again ...
The New York Times bestseller and "a rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness" (The Washington Post) from the author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser Welcome to Chromatacia, where the societal hierarchy is strictly regulated by one's limited color perception. And Eddie Russet wants to move up. But his plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended. Juggling inviolable rules, sneaky Yellows, and a risky friendship with an intriguing Grey named Jane who shows Eddie that the apparent peace of his world is as much an illusion as color itself, Eddie finds he must reckon with the cruel regime behind this gaily painted facade.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world' Daily Mail 'Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel's intriguing premise' Financial Times Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk. But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine. Praise for Jasper Fforde: 'Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure' Telegraph 'True literary comic genius' Sunday Express 'Ingenious' Terry Pratchett
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.
The final instalment of the Last Dragonslayer Chronicles, demonstrating that with a small band of committed followers, a large tin of resolve and steely determination, almost anything can be achieved . . . Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekick and fellow Orphan Tiger Prawns have been driven to the tip of the UnUnited Kingdoms - Cornwall - by the invasion of the Trolls. Their one defence is a six-foot-wide trench full of buttons, something which the Trolls find unaccountably terrifying (it's their clickiness). Worse than being eaten by Trolls is the prospect of the Mighty Shandar requisitioning the Quarkbeast and using him to achieve supreme power and domination - an ambition that has been four hundred years in the planning and which will ultimately leave the Earth a cold cinder, devoid of all life. Nothing has ever looked so bleak, but Jennifer, assisted by a renegade vegan Troll, a bunch of misfit sorcerers, the Princess (or is she now the ruler?) of the UnUnited (or are they now United?) Kingdoms, and Tiger, must find a way to vanquish the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, and along the way discover the truth about her parents, herself, and what is in the locked glovebox of her VW Beetle . . .
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR. THE MOST ORIGINAL BOOK OF 2021 'Sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality' The Times *** The village of Much Hemlock has always been a right-wing stronghold. British. Solid. Traditional. Then they move in. They're different from everyone else: they have a weird religion, an aggressive vegan agenda, and too many children. They may seem quiet and peace-loving, but who knows where it could lead? They are a family of human-sized rabbits, the result of an inexplicable anthropomorphising event half a century before. With a mass rehoming to Wales for 1.2 million rabbits looming, long-term resident Peter Knox is drawn from his customary spot on the fence and must choose his corner: a cosy job-for-life at the Rabbit Compliant Taskforce, or stand with the rabbits - and weather the full brunt of human savagery. It'll take a rabbit to teach a human humanity . . . PRAISE FOR JASPER FFORDE 'The Constant Rabbit is Jasper Fforde's most chilling and realistic book yet' Guardian 'You won't read anything quite like this in 2020 - or beyond that too' CultureFly 'Is there anyone who can write satire quite like Fforde?. . . An astonishingly well-crafted work of social and political satire.' Kirkus 'Fforde presents a milquetoast cog in an absurdly bureaucratic wheel, this time cleverly skewering Brexit, conservative politics, and white supremacy in this surprisingly uplifting tale of one man doing his best, even if it is the bare minimum.' Booklist 'The Constant Rabbit is designed to shake readers out of that complacency: to recognise that merely holding liberal values is not enough to prevent the quickening advance of racism and xenophobia in this country. One must act.' Financial Times 'A serious minded comedy' Mail on Sunday READERS LOVE THE CONSTANT RABBIT 'This is Jasper Fforde at his absolute best. Clever, thought-provoking and relevant, whilst maintaining the absurdity that we have come to love Fforde for' 5* 'A real classic - the sort of book that will be read in fifty or a hundred years' time' 5* '[Jasper Fforde's] ability to take something relatively normal and turn it on it's head is sublime, ridiculous and so enjoyable! Quirky, funny, satirical tale with pertinent reflections on current times.' 5* 'This book couldn't have come at a better time. Frighteningly poignant given the state of world. It's a truly wonderful piece of work
The second installment in Jasper Fforde's "New York Times "bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with "New York Times "bestselling author Jasper Fforde's magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction--the police force inside the BookWorld. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe's "The Raven." What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter's The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. It's another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment for fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse. Thursday's zany investigations continue with "The Well of Lost Plots." Look for the five other bestselling Thursday Next novels, including "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" and Jasper Fforde's latest bestseller, "The Woman Who Died A Lot." Visit jasperfforde.com for a ffull window into the Ffordian world
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'The Constant Rabbit is Jasper Fforde's most chilling and realistic book yet' Guardian 'You won't read anything quite like this in 2020 - or beyond that too' CultureFly *** England, 2020. There are 1.2 million human-sized rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk and drive cars, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphising Event fifty-five years ago. And a family of rabbits is about to move into Much Hemlock, a cosy little village where life revolves around summer fetes, jam-making, gossipy corner stores, and the oh-so-important Best Kept Village awards. No sooner have the rabbits arrived than the villagers decide they must depart. But Mrs Constance Rabbit is made of sterner stuff, and her family are behind her. Unusually, so are their neighbours, long-time residents Peter Knox and his daughter Pippa, who soon find that you can be a friend to rabbits or humans, but not both. With a blossoming romance, acute cultural differences, enforced rehoming to a MegaWarren in Wales, and the full power of the ruling United Kingdom Anti Rabbit Party against them, Peter and Pippa are about to question everything they'd ever thought about their friends, their nation, and their species. It'll take a rabbit to teach a human humanity . . . PRAISE FOR JASPER FFORDE 'Sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality' The Times 'Is there anyone who can write satire quite like Fforde?. . . An astonishingly well-crafted work of social and political satire.' Kirkus 'Fforde presents a milquetoast cog in an absurdly bureaucratic wheel, this time cleverly skewering Brexit, conservative politics, and white supremacy in this surprisingly uplifting tale of one man doing his best, even if it is the bare minimum.' Booklist 'The Constant Rabbit is designed to shake readers out of that complacency: to recognise that merely holding liberal values is not enough to prevent the quickening advance of racism and xenophobia in this country. One must act.' Financial Times 'A serious minded comedy' Mail on Sunday READERS LOVE THE CONSTANT RABBIT 'This is Jasper Fforde at his absolute best. Clever, thought-provoking and relevant, whilst maintaining the absurdity that we have come to love Fforde for' 5* 'A real classic - the sort of book that will be read in fifty or a hundred years' time' 5* '[Jasper Fforde's] ability to take something relatively normal and turn it on it's head is sublime, ridiculous and so enjoyable! Quirky, funny, satirical tale with pertinent reflections on current times.' 5* 'This book couldn't have come at a better time. Frighteningly poignant given the state of world. It's a truly wonderful piece of work that belongs right up there with Orwell.' 5* 'This is Jasper Fforde at his finest. A witty, thought provoking read that makes you sit up and take note of all the things going on around you. Love this author, was already a fan, but now even more so.' 5* 'I knew within minutes of starting the opening chapter that this was Fforde at the top of his game.' 5*
In the good old days, magic was indispensable--it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians--but it's hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world's last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam--and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.
The Gingerbreadman - psychopath, sadist, convicted murderer and cake/biscuit - is loose on the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. Despite the success of the Humpty Dumpty investigation, the well publicised failure to prevent Red Riding-Hood and her Gran being eaten once again plunges the Nursery Crime Division into controversy. Enforced non-involvement with the Gingerbreadman hunt looks to be frustrating until a chance encounter at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club leads them onto the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldy' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. The last witnesses to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood. But all is not what it seems. Are the unexplained explosions around the globe somehow related to missing nuclear scientist Angus McGuffin? Is cucumber-growing really that dangerous? Why are National Security involved? But most important of all: How could the bears' porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time?
Magic has been in a sad state in the Ununited Kingdom for years, but now it's finally on the rise, and boneheaded King Snodd IV knows it. If he succeeds at his plot, the very future of magic will be at risk Sensible sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange, acting manager of Kazam Mystical Arts Management and its unpredictable crew of sorcerers, has little chance against the king and his cronies--but there's no way Kazam will let go of the noble powers of magic without a fight. A suspenseful, satirical story of Quarkbeasts, trolls, and wizidrical crackle
The second book in Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde's phenomenally successful Thursday Next series. 'Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde' - Herald 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. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard? Is that possible? 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?
In the good old days, magic was indispensable. But now magic is fading: Drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians--but it's hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world's last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam--and for Jennifer.
The seventh book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series by Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde' - Herald The BookWorld's leading enforcement officer Thursday Next is four months into an enforced semi-retirement following an assassination attempt. She returns home to Swindon for what you'd expect to be a time of recuperation. If only life were that simple. Thursday is faced with an array of family problems - son Friday's lack of focus since his career in the Chronoguard was relegated to a might-have-been, daughter Tuesday's difficulty perfecting the Anti-Smote shield needed to thwart an angry Deity's promise to wipe Swindon off the face of the earth, and Jenny, who doesn't exist. And that's not all. With Goliath attempting to replace Thursday at every opportunity with synthetic Thursdays, the prediction that Friday's Destiny-Aware colleagues will die in mysterious circumstances, and a looming meteorite that could destroy all human life on earth, Thursday's retirement is going to be anything but easy . . .
The final instalment of the Last Dragonslayer Chronicles, demonstrating that with a small band of committed followers, a large tin of resolve and steely determination, almost anything can be achieved . . . Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekick and fellow Orphan Tiger Prawns have been driven to the tip of the UnUnited Kingdoms - Cornwall - by the invasion of the Trolls. Their one defence is a six-foot-wide trench full of buttons, something which the Trolls find unaccountably terrifying (it's their clickiness). Worse than being eaten by Trolls is the prospect of the Mighty Shandar requisitioning the Quarkbeast and using him to achieve supreme power and domination - an ambition that has been four hundred years in the planning and which will ultimately leave the Earth a cold cinder, devoid of all life. Nothing has ever looked so bleak, but Jennifer, assisted by a renegade vegan Troll, a bunch of misfit sorcerers, the Princess (or is she now the ruler?) of the UnUnited (or are they now United?) Kingdoms, and Tiger, must find a way to vanquish the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, and along the way discover the truth about her parents, herself, and what is in the locked glovebox of her VW Beetle . . .
The Mighty Shandar, the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, returns to the Ununited Kingdoms. Clearly, he didn't solve the Dragon Problem, and must return his fee: eighteen dray-weights of gold. But the Mighty Shandar doesn't do refunds, and vows to eliminate the dragons - unless sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekicks from the Kazam house of enchantment can bring him the legendary jewel, The Eye of Zoltar. The only thing that stands in their way is a perilous journey with a 50% Fatality Index - through the Cambrian Empire to the Leviathan Graveyard, at the top of the deadly Cadair Idris mountain. And it's a quest that sees Jennifer fighting not just for her life, but for everything she knows and loves . . .
The fourth installment in Jasper Fforde's "New York Times "bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England
The sixth instalment of Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde's sensational Thursday Nextseries. 'Fforde's books are more than just an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted. They have empathetic heroes and heroines who nearly make terrible mistakes and suitably dastardly villains who do. They also have more twists and turns than Christie, and are embellished with the rich details of Dickens or Pratchett' - Independent It is a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister? All is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, eager to prove herself worth of her illustrious namesake. The written Thursday is soon hot on the trail of her factual alter-ego, and quickly stumbles upon a plot so fiendish that it threatens the very BookWorld itself.
The fifth book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Ingenious - I'll watch Jasper Fforde nervously' Terry Pratchett on The Eyre Affair Fourteen years after she pegged out at 1988 SuperHoop, Thursday Next is grappling with a recalcitrant new apprentice, the death of Sherlock Holmes and the inexplicable departure of comedy from the once-hilarious Thomas Hardy novels. Her idle sixteen-year-old would rather sleep all day than save the world from imminent destruction, the government has a dangerously high stupidity surplues, and the Stiltonista Cheese Mafia are causing trouble for Thursday in her hometown of Swindon. Then things begin to get bad. As Reality Book Shows look set to transplant Reality TV Shows and Goliath invent a trans-fictional tourist coach, Thursday must once again have her wits about her as she travels to the very limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to rescue the reading experience from almost certain destruction . . .
It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with. And on top of everything else, the Jellyman is coming to town... |
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