Thursday Next

The taxi slowed down and stopped as the traffic ground to a halt. The cabbie made some inquiries and found out that a truck-load of "their" had collided with a trailer containing "there" going in the opposite direction and had spread there contents across the road. 

"Their will be a few hiccups after that," said the cabbie, and I agreed. Homophone mishaps often seeped out into the RealWorld and infected the Outlanders, causing theire to be all manner of confusion. 

-One of Our Thursdays is Missing, page 133

The book series of Thursday Next encompasses six books written by Jasper Fforde. This one, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, is the newest addition to the collection. I don't know how I ran across the first book years ago, but it was so humorous and book-nerdy, I grew attached and read all the rest. The stories are so creative, full of grammatical puns and characters from classic fiction and other books. Thursday Next is a detective of the literary world. She gets thrown into the Bookworld, where characters are alive and wrecking havoc in ways somehow related to their books. Thursday solves mysteries of murder and kidnapping while trying to keep order in the written world and get back out to the real world.

It is just pure, fun reading. To someone who loves the book world and the written word, these books are full of new, funny situations with characters already known. It has a British flair because the author is from Wales. So, that kind of humor always makes me chuckle. That also means a lot of coffee and tea is drunk. Or, in this newest book's case, not drunk. Here's what I mean:

"Could I not have a coffee?" I said, meaning I wanted an empty cup. Stubbs had become so expensive that no one could afford the coffee, but since the ambience in the cafe was so good and the establishment so fashionable, it was always full.
"What would you not like?" ask Paul...
"Better not give me a latte," I replied, "and better not make it a large one."
(page 101)

I know. I am such a book nerd. It's quite clear. So, I will just journey back down the Metaphoric River to the book world where I belong.