The Eyre Affair came up during discussion in book club when we were reading Rebecca (which is similar to Jane Eyre, which is in the title of this book. It was promoted as being a book about a literary police force tasked with keeping the stories of the books we know as they have always been.

How could I not be intrigued by this. I mean, I am always up for books about books and time travel, so the combination just sounded great.

However, it was even more than that, because quite unexpectedly there was a whole alternative history that was very interesting as well. And dodos for pets! Need I say more?!

All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised with the Eyre Affair and definitely plan to read the rest of the series!

I first heard about this book when I read Jane Eyre about 10 years ago and only got around to reading it now. Many people seem to enjoy it including some of my friends, but I found it to be a little less than engaging and not much of a page-turner. Ironic, since there's a minor character actually named Paige Turner in it.

I couldn't decide what the tone of the story is supposed to be. It keeps flip-flopping between the light and humorous (witty puns and names like the one mentioned above, literary trivia, random funny stuff from cloned dodos as pets to quirky secret societies) and the serious (veterans of an ongoing war, murdered innocents, an all-powerful corporation which has the English government in its pocket). I liked the Jane Eyre parts, but I'm sure I missed a lot of the other literary and historical/political references.

Thursday is a fierce lady but somehow I was more interested to learn further about the diabolical, mind-bending, bulletproof villain Acheron Hades and how he got his powers. One plot hole that bugged me was that things can happen in the background of the novel Jane Eyre that don't affect the story line as long as Jane doesn't know about them, because the novel is written in her first person point of view. But Thursday is also the first person narrator of this book and there are chapters seen through other people's points of view which she can't possibly know about. Overall I give this 2.5 stars, which I might round up or down later depending on how generous I feel.

That was a wild, wild romp.

I have been meaning to dive into the Thursday Next series for years, and finally decided to take the plunge after MBD's review of the most recent installment in the series. I've read all of Fforde's Chronicles of Kazam, so I am familiar with his unique style, but even so, nothing really prepared me for this book.

Fforde dropped me directly into the world, with a minimum of exposition and almost no info-dumping. It isn't necessarily easy to figure out all of what is going on with the Spec Ops, and he seems to want his readers to be off-balance since he constantly throws curveballs into the narrative.

I do love books about books, though, so the premise of this series is just so delicious. And Fforde must be one of the most well-read writers currently working, because the book is plock full o'references to classic literature. The references to Shakespeare and the controversy as to the true identity of the playwright alone were voluminous and fascinating. About midway through the book I started highlighting the literary references, and then I found this GR list of all of the books mentioned in the Thursday Next series.

Poor Mr. Quaverly. Lost forever from the pages of Martin Chuzzlewit, a book which I am now going to have to read. I loved the conceit with the ending of Jane Eyre, as well. 

I'm midway through another detective story, so I'm not going to start book two until I finish that one, but I found The Eyre Affair engaging enough that I definitely want to continue with the series! And even though this isn't technically a mystery, I'm counting it as one of the 50 crimes of summer!