Three Down and One More to Go

I read The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde as slowly as I could in an attempt to enjoy every nuance and catch as many jokes as possible. It all began well enough, one or two chapters a day. But then I reached The Point of No Return and had to keep reading. A daily meandering through one or two chapters became a headlong rush through four or five until the expanse of time known as The Weekend opened up and I found that I simply could not stop, nor did I want to. And so this afternoon I finished the book in a big greedy gobble with only minor interruptions for things like laundry, lunch and a kiss from the Husband (The kiss was a pleasant interruption, don't get me wrong. And so was lunch especially since the Husband made it. Laundry however, not so much). The Well of Lost Plots is book three in Fforde's Thursday Next series. In this book Thursday has retired to the Well, where unpublished books reside, to hide from Goliath and recuperate after her adventures in Lost in a Good Book. Needless to say Thursday finds herself in the middle of things including a murder investigation. Anymore than that I cannot reveal. The Husband is in the middle of The Eyre Affair and I don't want to give anything away. I am on a, I hope brief, hiatus from Thursday's world. I do not yet have a copy of the fourth book, Something Rotten. But, it should be making its way to me by means of the US Postal Service. It is just as well that I don't have it yet as I would be inclined to start reading it today. With good intentions, of course, to read it slowly and purposefully, a few chapters at a time. And we all know how that story ends up. I am also glad that I don't have it because I have reached what readers of a favorite author or series dread, the last book. Something Rotten is not only the last book thus far published in the series, it is the only other book by Mr. Fforde that I have not read. A double whammy. And so, after this next Next book, I am forced to wait for who knows how long until another book is published. The anticipation of this is agony. While I await the arrival of Something Rotten I will return to Vanity Fair as well as begin a book from the library my friend tinLizzy has insisted I read so she can have someone to talk it over with: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. As a result you, my vast horde of readers (if two or three can be said to constitute a horde or be considered vast for that matter), will also be subjected to the conversation. You have been warned.