Well dear reader its been a while since I’ve posted what I’ve been reading. The reading hasn’t stopped, but the posting has. A mixed bag, but mostly good.

A delightful read was Jasper Fford’s “Lost in a Good Book”. The reviews describe this as “Harry Potter for adults” (which I take some exception to as I think Rowling’s books, particularly the most recent ones, are quite enjoyable if not immensely sophisticated). Fford’s wit is extraordinarily dry, and the jokes, both literary and otherwise, come fast and furious.

The central conceit of the novel is that, in the vaguely parallel universe the novel inhabits, it is possible, through a device called the “Prose Portal” to “jump” into a book, to inhabit its environs, and even change the events of the story. There’s also time travel, genetic engineering (pet Dodos and Neanderthal train-drivers make an appearance). The book starts more or less where Fforde’s previous novel “The Eyre Affair” leaves off, and the action centers around the adventures and mis-adventures of Thursday Next, Special Operations, er, operative. Actually the Prose Portal doesn’t make much of an appearance, as Next discovers she can jump into any text without the assistance of the Portal. The action centers around conflict with agents from the Goliath Corporation, and their many mis-deeds. Characters from Jane Eyre, Dickens, Poe, and other literary classics abound.

This short novel is too complex to easily summarize, but I found myself laughing out loud several times (which is disturbing to one’s partner at night, and worrisome to strangers on the street). The humour is great, and the notion that what happens in books really matters is wonderful.