Jasper Fforde

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Born
in London, England, The United Kingdom
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March 2016


Fforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.

After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist rep
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Jasper Fforde Just recently a previously unknown Shakespeare First Folio was rediscovered, which once again throws the often unwelcome spotlight on the earlier 'pro…moreJust recently a previously unknown Shakespeare First Folio was rediscovered, which once again throws the often unwelcome spotlight on the earlier 'problem' manuscripts of Shakespeare's most famous work, Hamlet.

The First (bad) Quarto of 1603 is long presumed to be a pirated version, presumably reassembled by minor actors within the company. But there are, however, even earlier versions which throw an intriguing light on Shakespeare's writing processes as he moved from first draft to finished masterpiece.

The 'Frightfully Bad' Quarto, for instance, featured Hamlet with the now notorious 'Scooby Doo' ending, where King Hamlet turns out to be Fortinbrass simply pretending to be a ghost in order to divert attention away from his pending invasion. It finishes with the line, now much paraphrased: "And were it not for these children of meddlesome countenance, this crown would be mine.'

Of lesser interest still is the fragmented 'Die Hard Quarto' which features Hamlet visiting Elsinore castle to reconcile with Ophelia, only to find the castle overrun with 'A foul and pestilent congregation of evilness' led by Polonius' estranged brother, Hans Gruber. Thankfully the play is now lost except for fragments of the 'Now I have a rapier Ho Ho Ho' scene. As a minor aside, the play features the first known usage of the exclamation: 'Yippee Ki Yay, Bull's pizzle'

But of all the various Hamlet drafts theorised to exist, perhaps the most contentious is: 'The Comedy of Hamlet, Prince of Zombies'. Extrapolated from scribbled margin notes in Kit Marlowe's early draft of 'The Massacre of Paris', the play is unique in that it was originally thought to have been performed backwards.

Denmark has been overrun by a Zombie Apocalypse. All are undead. The action begins when Prince Hamlet is brought back to life during a fencing tournament. In revenge for this 'foul and discourteous act' Hamlet proceeds to 'undead' the rest of the cast. He does this by various means - an 'elixir of life' to his mother, a refreshing sea journey for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, a swim in the fountain of life for his undead girlfriend Necrophelia, and the 'unstabbing' of Polonius. It was, according to a contemporary observer: 'A play of infinite mirth'.

Details of the action are mostly obscure, but the soliloquy survives where Hamlet muses on whether it is better to be dead or undead: 'To not to be, or to not to not to be'. The play ends, it is supposed, with Hamlet swearing to make his father undead and reseat him on the throne of the now living Denmark. It is thought the surviving line: 'Something Rotten in the State of Denmark' also refers to the play's Zombie roots.

The mechanism by which this early draft morphed into the modern Hamlet has long been mired in controversy, but tellingly, Shakespeare was known to have promised to deliver a 'most excellent tragedy' to the King's Men in 1602, and was told to: 'deliver the work on Monday or your head will be off'. It is tantalising to suggest that he simply reversed the action over the course of a boozy weekend.

Alas, we will never know.
(less)
Jasper Fforde I don't have an answer - I just want to say Thank You! I have loved that you read all my books!!?

Seriously, you guys pay my bills and allow me to do t…more
I don't have an answer - I just want to say Thank You! I have loved that you read all my books!!?

Seriously, you guys pay my bills and allow me to do the best job in the world. Thankyouthankyouthankyou(less)
Average rating: 4.02 · 516,302 ratings · 44,897 reviews · 48 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Eyre Affair (Thursday N...

3.88 avg rating — 137,539 ratings — published 2001 — 124 editions
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Lost in a Good Book (Thursd...

4.13 avg rating — 56,270 ratings — published 2002 — 98 editions
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The Well of Lost Plots (Thu...

4.09 avg rating — 42,615 ratings — published 2003 — 87 editions
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Shades of Grey (Shades of G...

4.15 avg rating — 41,781 ratings — published 2009 — 2 editions
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Something Rotten (Thursday ...

4.16 avg rating — 36,086 ratings — published 2004 — 6 editions
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The Big Over Easy (Nursery ...

3.94 avg rating — 34,568 ratings — published 2005 — 54 editions
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First Among Sequels (Thursd...

4.03 avg rating — 27,663 ratings — published 2007 — 66 editions
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The Fourth Bear (Nursery Cr...

4.08 avg rating — 24,010 ratings — published 2006 — 46 editions
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The Last Dragonslayer (The ...

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One of Our Thursdays Is Mis...

3.98 avg rating — 20,187 ratings — published 2011 — 48 editions
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More books by Jasper Fforde…
The Eyre Affair Lost in a Good Book The Well of Lost Plots Something Rotten First Among Sequels One of Our Thursdays Is Mis... The Woman Who Died a Lot
(8 books)
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4.01 avg rating — 336,886 ratings

The Big Over Easy The Fourth Bear The Last Great Tortoise Race
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Shades of Grey Red Side Story Wild Blue Yonder
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The Last Dragonslayer The Song of the Quarkbeast The Eye of Zoltar The Great Troll War
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Quotes by Jasper Fforde  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.”
Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten

“After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.”
Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

“Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.”
Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

Polls

What shall we read next, to discuss in June? PLEASE, do not vote unless you will join us for the discussion!

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
2017, 353 pages, 3.76 stars
$17.08 paperback, $13.99 Kindle, $5.01 and up in used print, probably at the library



"Never Let Me Go meets The Giver in this haunting debut about a cult on an isolated island, where nothing is as it seems.

Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, ten men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a radical society of ancestor worship, controlled breeding, and the strict rationing of knowledge and history. Only the Wanderers--chosen male descendants of the original ten--are allowed to cross to the wastelands, where they scavenge for detritus among the still-smoldering fires.

The daughters of these men are wives-in-training. At the first sign of puberty, they face their Summer of Fruition, a ritualistic season that drags them from adolescence to matrimony. They have children, who have children, and when they are no longer useful, they take their final draught and die. But in the summer, the younger children reign supreme. With the adults indoors and the pubescent in Fruition, the children live wildly--they fight over food and shelter, free of their fathers' hands and their mothers' despair. And it is at the end of one summer that little Caitlin Jacob sees something so horrifying, so contradictory to the laws of the island, that she must share it with the others.

Born leader Janey Solomon steps up to seek the truth. At seventeen years old, Janey is so unwilling to become a woman, she is slowly starving herself to death. Trying urgently now to unravel the mysteries of the island and what lies beyond, before her own demise, she attempts to lead an uprising of the girls that may be their undoing."
 
  4 votes, 44.4%

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
2009, 449 pages, 4.14 stars
$11.52 paperback, $16.99 Kindle, cheap used copies, available at libraries



"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."
 
  4 votes, 44.4%

Trackers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
2017, 340 pages, 4.19 stars
$8.47 and up paperback, $2.99 Kindle, not at library



"The end of the world is just the beginning of the hunt....

Estes Park police chief Marcus Colton and tracker Sam "Raven" Spears have never liked one another, but when a young girl goes missing in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colton hires Spears to help find her. Their search ends after a night of devastating horror. When word reaches Estes that the nation has been hit by a coordinated electromagnetic pulse attack, Colton and Spears are forced to work together again. But they quickly realize they aren't just tracking a killer - they are tracking a madman. As the United States descends into chaos, the hunters become the hunted.

Halfway across the country, Senator Charlize Montgomery awakes to find the nation's capital has gone dark. Forced to set off on foot, she treks across a city that has woken to a new world, and as the night progresses she learns the EMP attack was just the beginning."
 
  1 vote, 11.1%

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