Favourite authors: Jasper Ffore
I've been running around with the idea of giving my favourite authors some exposure here on my LJ and now I'm finally starting it. I will leave out the well-known classic authors (Austen, Dickens, Tolkien) etc, mainly because most people already know them and appreciate them, and so much has been said, what could I possibly add? So, let's get started with the first part of my-favourite-authors-that-you-might-not-yet-know-and-maybe-will-give-a-try-after-reading-my-posts.
Jasper Fforde
I've only read three books by this author, but I was already sold after, let's say, 50 pages of the first book! In the Thursday Next series, Fforde creates a world which I can only describe as a cross between Doctor Who and Lost in Austen, minus aliens. A 1985 in which traveling in time is an everyday reality, airships are the main public transport, many people keep re-engineered dodos for pets and the Crimean War is still ongoing. All seemingly random and silly inventions, but Fforde gets away with it, because reading his books, the world he created feels alluring, charming and most of all real. After all, what is so very strange about Wales as a Socialist Republic and traveling through the center of the earth to reach Sydney? But ofcourse for book nerds, such as most of you people on my f-list are, the best part about the Thursday Next series is the fact that the main character can travel into books. Wouldn't we all like that!? Well, it's not much of a holiday for Thursday (I could write a review about Fforde's brilliant use of names only...), as she is recruited into the police force of the book world and has to solve crimes which include characters being kidnapped from books, but also ordinary pest control (grammasites and so forth). The title of the first Thursday Next book: The Eyre Affair, already sort of gives it away: the more classics you've read, the more fun reading Jasper Fforde is. His books are loaded with allusions to works of Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens etc. Try to catch as much of them as you can, but mostly, as a reviewer for the Sunday Telegraph said about Fforde's work: 'Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure.'
