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    One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
    One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
    One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
    Audiobook11 hours

    One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

    Written by Jasper Fforde

    Narrated by Emily Gray

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Deftly blending such genres as mystery, science fiction, and classic literature, Jasper Fforde's gleefully irreverent New York Times best-selling Thursday Next novels defy categorization. In this sixth installment, the threat of all-out Genre war looms over BookWorld. But with the real Thursday Next retired in the real world, the Council of Genres has no other choice than to tap the fictional Thursday to save the day. Her mission as emissary is to prevent the brewing war-but her task is made more difficult by a hidden foe manipulating events.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 8, 2011
    ISBN9781449866808
    One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
    Author

    Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde is the internationally best-selling author of the Chronicles of Kazam, the Thursday Next mysteries, and the Nursery Crime books. He lives in Wales. www.jasperfforde.com Twitter: @jasperfforde Instagram: @jasperfforde  

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    Reviews for One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This installment in the Thursday Next was more involved, with Fforde slightly more shrewd, and cagey. BookWorld changes from a library to a geographic organization, reducing some of the gymnastic physics, but easier to navigate and establishing a subplot of territorial conflict based on "mineral" rights. The central "mystery" is the investigation surrounding the disappearance of Thursday Next (real) by Thursday Next (written), but for me the joy came from some of Fforde's technical concepts: a metaphor accelerator, for example, and the geographic BookWorld on the inner surface of a sphere. I enjoyed this installment more than TN5; all in all, a brilliant romp.
    • 5/5
      Yay, so wonderful to have another Thursday Next book! After TN4 and TN5, I was a little nervous that Fforde was overextending himself, and that he should have stopped before the series got bogged down. But TN6 is fantastic. Fforde is fantastic at writing himself out of holes: he clearly sat down to write this book and thought to himself, "Darn, there are a bunch of things that I've been doing wrong in this series from the very beginning." So he fixes them. Boom, in one fell swoop he plausibly changes the Bookworld from a library layout to a geographic layout. Boom, this book explains why the Thursday Next novels within the Bookworld are different from the real-life Thursday Next novels (and fixes the discrepancy). This is another classic Thursday book - lots of action crammed into a few days, crazy adventures, a plotline that you think can't possibly all come together and then it does at the last moment. Fforde's fount of creativity is amazing: he keeps coming up with new and wonderful and hilarious things. Of all the alternate universes I have ever read about, this is the one in which I would most like to live.I hope he writes more!
    • 4/5
      Another fun entry in the Thursday Next series. Wasn't sure I was going to like the new approach at first, but it turned out to be a nice change of pace. It really had me wondering in a couple of places.
    • 5/5
      Fans of the Thursday Next series won't be disappointed in Fforde's long awaited return. The Book World has been re-drawn in a New World fashion with border scuffles a new worry for lesser genres. The maps included are worth the read, very clever! The introduction and placement of written Thursday as a main character did feel a little different, but soon I was swept up in Fforde's imagination and worried that Racy Novel would indeed ruin their peace talks. I tried to savor each literary bit in the novel, but eventually, I came to the end. It was not so final that there won't be hope for another Thursday adventure, real or written.
    • 5/5
      I was so disappointed when it looked like Jasper Fforde had given up on Thursday Next in First Among Prequels. He had wrapped up all the final details and it certainly seemed like the end. So I was extremely delighted to find another book in the series, and it is Fforde's usual inventive self. The way he writes about Thursday without writing about Thursday is amazing. I hope there are more to come.
    • 4/5
      Thursday Next has gone missing... or has she. Fforde spins a fantastical tale in the latest additional to the series.This last one is very complicated. I definitely do not recommend this one if you haven't read any of the first. It's very complicated and confusing. But, enjoyable none the same.
    • 4/5
      This isn't the strongest of the Thursday Next books, but if you have enjoyed the series, you won't want to miss it.
    • 3/5
      In the Nextian Universe there are, basically, two worlds. In the RealWorld, dodos are household pets and Neanderthals productive members of society, there is an active black market for cheese and a Socialist Republic of Wales (where, its tourism board proclaims, it's "Not always raining). There is also a BookWorld, in which the genres vie for domination, characters from books are ranked socially according to how often their books are read, and raw metaphor is one of the hottest commodities around.One of Our Thursdays is Missing is the sixth of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books (or the seventh, if you count the no longer available The Great Samual Pepys Affair). As it opens, the BookWorld has been remade into an inverted globe (just go with it), making it no longer necessary to jump from book to book to travel there. The Thursday Next featured in this installment, we quickly learn (although it took this dense reader somewhat longer to figure it out and then make sense of it) is the written version, the somewhat more accessible, kinder gentler version that the real Thursday Next thinks she would like to be. The real Thursday, it turns out, has gone missing...just as she's about to attend the peace talks between Racy Novel and the rest of the genres. It becomes the written Thursday's assignment to take on a mission for which she's not been trained, namely, to find the real Thursday and ensure that the peace talks go as scheduled. But she has to do so while juggling a would-be boyfriend with a dark backstory, a crush on the real Thursday's husband (who was never written into the books and so exists only in the RealWorld), and dissent among the ranks of the characters in her series. Good thing early in her narrative she rescues a mechanical man about to be stoned to pieces by some particularly paranoid inhabitants of Conspiracy, a sub-genre of Thriller, thereby gaining a sidekick who mixes a mean cocktail and thinks deep thoughts. He needs to be wound every once in a while to keep him going, but well, really, when you think about it, who doesn't?The reader must let go and comes to term with the fact that the antic, madcap, and bizarrely violent action may never make perfect sense. Once she accomplishes this, One of Our Thursdays is Missing reveals itself to be fun, clever, mind--and genre--twisting fun.
    • 4/5
      On the one hand, the main character wasn't really driven until near the end of the book.On the other hand, ooooh, some painful digs against the publishing industry! And annoying readers! And a good mystery in which everything may or may not be what it seems! If you liked the previous books, the few flaws will be easily overlooked. I wouldn't start here with the series...therefore, anyone trying to decide to read this should either go, "Read this!" or "Don't read this yet!"
    • 5/5
      Jasper Fforde just keeps writing stuff that I devour as soon as I can get my hands on it. This one is a little different as we're not following the real Thursday Next, but instead are thrown into the life of the written Thursday Next in BookWorld - or are we? Since nobody has seen the 'real' Thursday for a while, the 'written' one begins an investigation with the help of a new sidekick (an automaton called Sprockett) and some of Thursday's friends.For me, the addition of Sprockett was one of my favorite things. After all, everybody needs a butler who can make you a cocktail at a moment's notice. It turns out that this Thursday has almost as exciting a life as the real one....or maybe she is the real one and just doesn't know it? What I love about Fforde's writing is that although there is a mystery involved, I almost never figure it out - or at least not all of it. There are so many twists and turns and absurdities (oh, and red herrings) that it's difficult to know where he's going - but it's a fun ride getting there!If you haven't read the other books (or like me, it has been awhile since you read the others) you may feel a bit lost for the first couple chapters, but just go with it - or go back and read the others; they are enough fun to be worth it! His Thursday Next series is definitely more fun if you 'get' the literary/grammatical jokes.
    • 5/5
      Jasper Fforde has always come off to me as an author with an abundance of ideas and a desire to throw as many of them out there as he can at any time. His novels tend to be stuffed to bursting with concepts and conceits, and this can play out for better or worse, depending on the balance between whichever ones he’s chosen for a given outing. When we come to the Thursday Next series, I’ve usually found the books more set in the RealWorld, to borrow Fforde’s phrase, with SpecOps and Goliath and croquet and such, more enjoyable than the ones primarily set in the BookWorld with Thursday’s book-jumping Jurisfictional adventures.When I took a look at the latest entry in the series, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, then, I wasn’t as excited at the arrival of a new Fforde book as I had been for, say, Shades of Gray. Fortunately, however, this run turned out to be very enjoyable. Here, we have the unpopular written version of Thursday Next, a shier, gentler version of the real one from the author-approved version of the Thursday Next series, trying to work out a mystery involving the real Thursday in a totally remade Bookworld, taken from the Great Library model of the previous books to one laid out geographically, with skirmishes and territorial squabbles between neighboring genres, and distinctive cultures within each of the genres themselves.Over the course of the book, the written Thursday gets to interact with a lot of the characters we’ve seen in the series thus far, along with new characters, such as Whitby Jett, her Designated Love Interest, and Sprockett, a cog-based butler. The mystery takes Thursday all over the island and beyond, and it’s quite well put together and interesting. Fforde’s got a good way of doing these things, and in contrast to the previous book, this one finishes on a more complete note, I find.The best part of reading this, though, is Fforde’s imagination and wit, ranging from low puns to riffing on fictional conventions and fellow authors to quick takes on classic works of fiction to all sorts of callbacks to previous books in the series. As such, I really wouldn’t recommend starting here; you really need to start with the first book in the series and read through to get a full enjoyment of this one, I think. He also has worked out a new way for the BookWorld to function, within a hollow globe, and it’s quite well fleshed out, too. I didn’t exactly rush out to read this one, but I’m really glad I got around to it, and seeing the written Thursday come into a character in her own right. I’ll be looking forward to the next one, for sure.
    • 4/5
      Its a fun read through the book world. This story shouldn't work, but it does. It has a lot of techno-babble that actually works in this setting. Its a fun read, not very deep, has great characters, and a world that actually seems like it should be real. I keep wondering, how books got created before bookworld realized they weren't real?
    • 5/5
      The tradition continues, with a slight twist.The story begins as a book within book. But this time, it begins with a Thursday book, with A8 Thursday as the main character.The real life Thursday is not in action yet. (I'm only into 1/3 of the book). Not many familiar characters, and reader is still trying to find out what going on with the plot.A lot of book reference plots. Is she the real Thursday or is she not?The last 50 pages would tell you that.It is enjoyable. I enjoy the new characters like Butler. He is really sweet. Spoiler alert. The last bit is gathering of clues and finding the missing Thursdays. It is a success.
    • 4/5
      As tensions heat up between Women's Fiction and Racy Novel, Thursday Next is nowhere to be found. It's up to the Written Thursday Next to step in, but she has problems of her own to juggle.Why I picked it up: I love Jasper Fforde. I tried to listen to the audiobook, but you can't savor the delightful mangled dialog of Mrs. Malaprop, or linger over the puns and the other ways Fforde plays with language and the experience of reading.Why I finished it: "Plays with language and the experience of reading." The idea of "genre as place" tickles an old Grad School nerve.I'd give it to: I think old grad school chums might get a kick out of this, and like it better than the rest of the series.
    • 5/5
      More enjoyable language- and literature-bashing from Jasper Fforde. BookWorld has been re-designed to be geographical, ebooks are having an impact on reading processes and the written Thursday is faced with the disappearance of her RealWorld counterpart and an imminent war between the Racy Novel and Women's Fiction parts of the world.I don't think you could get the most out of this book without having read the earlier ones - which isn't a criticism at all. Quite the reverse, as it means that there's a lot less explanation than there was in earlier books, which is a good thing. I love the way Fforde mucks about with language and with literary conventions. "Double negatives were a complete no-no" was one of my favourite lines.
    • 4/5
      I hadn't read any of the other books in the series before, so it took me awhile to get into the book, I almost gave up on it. But I'm glad that I didn't. Once I got into the book I really enjoyed the way it was written, and the unique path the FForde took. His development of the Thursday character was great, and the way he developed the story and walked us through the mystery was very good. It is a unique book, and I;m glad that I stuck with it through the confusing beginning.
    • 5/5
      First, I must comment on the cover. It is one of my favorites. And if you actually have a copy in your hand, you can see the best part: that the books that are about to fall on Thursday Next actually appear to have words written in ball point pen on the fore edges (the part of the book opposite the spine). The detail! Though I'm not exactly sure Thursday Next would wear that ensemble. Thursday is one of my favorite characters. She kind of reminds me of an older Buffy (the Vampire Slayer) if she had actually read any of those books in the Sunnydale school library (well, other than the demon reference books anyway). Not to mention Spike Stoker, who not only shares a name with Buffy's Spike and has blond hair but also battles the undead. Now to the writing: Could there BE a bad Thursday Next book? Jasper Fforde could write hundreds of these and they would still be amazing (and I do hope he does write many many more). These books are always my favorites. Everything here is so unique and creative, it is difficult to compare Jasper Fforde to any other writer. A lot of the characters are from your favorite classics. Even some writers are mentioned (ie: Zadie Smith and Kurt Vonnegut). If you are a "book person", you can not help but love these books about books. Even if you don't get one of the bookish jokes, the book has already moved onto the next joke. And you don't need to get all of the jokes anyway for this to be very fun and enjoyable. If you have ever picked up even one book in your life and liked it, you'll like the Thursday Next series. You'll just love it more with the more books you have read. Anyone can find things to love in these books, whether you love the humor or the characters or the mystery or the suspense. And that is putting it way too blandly for a Thursday Next book! Start with the first in series, The Eyre Affair, and make your way through them all, pronto!
    • 3/5
      I was lucky enough to win this book in a competition run by Borders bookstore. I’m glad that I won it, because I’m not sure whether I would have liked this as much had I shelled out hard earned cash for it.This is the sixth book in the Thursday Next series and like the others, is told in first person by Thursday herself. But in this book, it’s the second fictional Thursday telling the story, not the real Thursday Next, who has disappeared and not the first fictional Thursday Next, who was erased. This is the loving, gentle, hippy Thursday Next that failed Jurisfiction, unlike the real Thursday Next.Too many Thursdays in the above paragraph? This is a book whose plot could be difficult to grasp without reading the previous books. Let me try to summarise: in an alternate universe where cheese is illicit, everyone loves reading and the world is nearly completely controlled by the Goliath Corporation resides Thursday Next. An ex-SpecOps agent, she lives with her husband Landen (who was erased by Goliath temporarily) and children (one who is never seen but anyone besides Thursday). Thursday is also a Jurisfiction agent, meaning she has the ability to ‘jump’ into books and solve crimes/issues in the BookWorld. But Thursday is missing from this book and fictional Thursday, a resident in the BookWorld (who acts out the Thursday Next books as you read them) tells this story. The story mainly takes place in the BookWorld and while this world is interesting, we’ve heard about Netherfield Park and grammacytes in previous books. The ‘reworking’ of the BookWorld wasn’t really interesting and not particularly necessary. The overall plot is basic - that Thursday is looking for Thursday. In her travels, she meets the adorable Sprockett, her robot butler as well as interacts with many well-known fictional characters (e.g. The Lady of Shallott).This books moves a lot more slowly than the previous Thursday Next books (not the fault of fictional Thursday, she doesn’t really have a detailed plot line to work with) and the conclusion is tied up oh-so-neatly. It lacks the witticisms and fiction in-jokes of the previous books. I think I’ll wait for the reviews of Thursday Next #7 before I enter competitions to win it.
    • 5/5
      Thursday is back - or is she? I liked this twist on the series - the inside out version perhaps. Sprockets was a fun addition and I liked the in-depth view of the Bookworld. Mr. Fforde doesn't disappoint.
    • 5/5
      The Book World's version of Thursday Next is trying to keep the first four volumes of her series respectable even though their readership is down, the other characters are disgruntled, and the books have become remaindered. She decides to bring in an understudy so she can do some work away from her novels for Jurisfiction. Her first case is an accident that drops narrative debris over Conspiracy Theory. While investigating the mishap she discovers that the real Thursday is missing somewhere in the Book World. She is needed for the peace talks between Racy Novel and Women's Lit. Does the downed book have anything to do with the missing Thursday?I loved reading about the Book World. Jasper Fforde is a terrific world builder. The Book World is a landmass with each genre having it's own boundaries that expand and contract based on readership. Each little book "country" has it's own idiosyncrasies; it's always wet and dreary in Physiological Thriller, Comedy has a clown army. Yet, even though this book realm is very interesting and extremely funny, I missed the real Thursday and her life in Swindon. The storyline was not as exciting or complicated as the other Thursday Next novels. I missed Thursday's family and her battles with Goliath. I hope the next book is about the real Thursday.
    • 4/5
      I was disappointed in the previous Thursday Next book, First Among Sequels, so I was a little apprehensive about this one, thinking the series may have run out of steam. Fortunately my fears were groundless. This volume focuses not on the Thursday Next that we met in The Eyre Affair, but on her fictional, written counterpart, the star of the Thursday Next books -- which aren't, however, our Thursday Next books! The real Thursday has gone missing, shortly before she's due to participate in key peace talks between genres, and the written Thursday needs to find her.I enjoyed most of the new introductions in this entry; Sprockett, Thursday's clockwork butler rescued from an obscure vanity-published book, and the flat multitudes of Fanfiction Island were particularly amusing. I did find references to recent works jarring; Thursday's world is so different from our own that it strains credibility to suggest that it, too, has a tremendously popular Harry Potter series. (Still, the Potter references are brief and ignorable, and thus only a minor nuisance.)Overall I was quite pleased. Fforde seems to have ffound his ffooting again, and after my trepidation I'm once more looking forward to the next Next.
    • 3/5
      On audio. I've really enjoyed all of the previous Thursday Next book in this series, most of which I've listened to on audio, as was this one. But this sixth installment to the series was simply... awful. I could barely makes heads or tails of it, it wasn't even the "real" Thursday through the entire book. Most of it just seemed to be a number of literary and grammatically themed gags all thrown together higgledy-piggledy in order to create an incoherent plot line about Thursday Next being missing (or is she?) and the "written" Thursday Next has to masquerade as the "real" Thursday to find out what happened to the real Thursday! Yes, we see some old familiar faces, but I missed the real Thursday as she's supposed to be! It just wasn't the same, although the narration was fine, as usual. Still there was no jumping in and out of books, or seeing familiar classic characters from books we all know and love. The fact I even finished this book took superhuman effort on my part. Big disappointment.
    • 5/5
      Another humorous romp through Book World with Jasper Fforde. Any lover of reading will get a kick out of this series.
    • 4/5
      One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde is the sixth book in his apparently ongoing Thursday Next saga. This review doesn’t contain spoilers for previous books.The Thursday Next books are based around the premise that BookWorld, the reality in which all fiction (and non-fiction, come to that) comes to life, is a real place. Thursday Next, in earlier books, has adventures travelling in an out of BookWorld with evil corporation and miscellaneous bad guys doing, er, bad things both in RealWorld and BookWorld. It’s an enjoyable series. The first book is The Eyre Affair, involving shenanigans in Jane Eyre. If you’re a book geek (and especially if you’ve read some of the classics, although I haven’t and was still able to enjoy the books) I recommend them. The first few books should be mandated book geek reading. ;-pOn the other hand, One of Our Thursdays is Missing is not a place to start reading this series. It depends a little too heavily on having a knowledge of earlier books. It’s set mostly in BookWorld just as BookWorld undergoes a restructuring. That part isn’t problematic as new BookWorld is new for all readers. But later RealWorld comes up and Thursday’s RealWorld bears only a passing similarity to ours. I’d actually forgotten about that until it came up but at least I’d read the earlier books and had those memories to fall back on. I think a new reader would have found that section quite confusing.The set up for One of Our Thursdays is Missing is that RealWorld Thursday has (surprise!) gone missing. BookWorld Thursday, the one playing Thursday in the novelisations of Thursday’s adventures (which aren’t quite identical to the earlier books in the series but are closely related… it’s all very meta) has to work out what happened. And why Real Thursday is missing. And so forth. Also there are peace talks that Real Thursday was supposed to attend which may or may not have something to do with her disappearance but by golly it’s all a bit of a problem.I didn’t hate the book. I quite enjoyed the first third or so of it. (Whether or not this was because I was suffering delusions due to prolonged lack of sleep is debatable.) But I felt it lagged from them onwards. It was amusing — the humour wasn’t the problem — but it just left me a little cold. I read three other books while still in the middle of this one, which doesn’t say much for it’s ability to keep my attention.Overall, I’d recommend it to fans of Fforde’s other work who have read the previous books. (Actually, having read all previous books isn’t strictly necessary. The plot is self-contained, it’s just the world-building that isn’t. However, as I remember enjoying the rest of the Thursday Next books, I do recommend reading them before getting to this one, lest One of Our Thursdays is Missing put you off the others.)3.5 / 5 stars
    • 4/5
      Weird. But then it was always going to be. You really need to have read the previous books in the series before starting this one. There is a lot of oblique references to thinks that did and did not happen in the series beforehand. Thursday is missing. Fortunately there are other Thursdays around, some left over from the previous book, and a few new ones as well.None of these quite have the vitality of the 'real' Thursday, but each plays their part in Thursdays greater story. Events in the Bookworld are not that much more confusing than normal, despite the great Remaking, which has altered the geography from a vast library to that of an inverted sphere, the the genres now as islands within the TextSea - that eternal constant of the literary world. With a cross genre war looming over the disputed racy novel territories, cheese smuggling still rife, and political machinations between the Council of Genres and it's own police force Jurisfiction, poor written Thursday languishing in her now unread 'happy' series, is asked to investigate a crashed book. The book was in transit and fell apart over Aviation scattering graphemes along the way. Aided by her mechanical butler (everyone needs a butler) written Thursday starts to find some pieces of evidence that lead in surprising directions - well they would, this after all is fiction on the border between Fantasy and Adventure, close to the boundaries of Thriller. Does she have sufficient depth of character to piece together the clues, overcome the villains (there are always villains) separate the consequential from the random (how many random events happen in novels?) and find the real Thursday next, whilst discovering true love in the process? If none of the above makes any sense to you, you obviously don't remember the previous books well enough, go and read them again. If it does make some sense, but still seems a little confusing, then you're in the right place. Enjoy the book, and try and solve the mystery before the grand denouncement. It's inventive and wacky, set almost entirely in the (new) BookWorld. Mostly it makes enough sense to follow along, and although some favourite characters don't make an appearance, there are enough new ones to enjoy. I wasn't completely convinced by he written Thursday's character - she changes too much to be believable as the version the Real Thursday wanted her to be, but other than that the writing is as good as ever. The wackiness and inventiveness are dialed right up, and while lacking the social commentary that Goliath normally adds to the proceedings, it is still very enjoyable.A worthy continuation.
    • 5/5
      Thursday is here at last!Way back in 2001, buzz rippled through the American publishing industry for a British debut novel, The Eyre Affair. It was this country’s introduction to two unlikely-named characters: Jasper Fforde and Thursday Next. We’ve had a decade to get to know them now, and they haven’t worn out their welcome yet. On the contrary, Fforde ffanatics long for Thursday’s return, as she has not made an appearance since 2007’s First Among Sequels.One of Our Thursdays is Missing is Fforde’s sixth novel in the series. There is always danger of a continuing series growing stale, but Fforde manages to keep things fresh in a variety of ways. First, he rotates the Next novels with those in two other series. Also, there was a bit of a paradigm shift in the last book, as Fforde moved the action of the story ahead by 14 years. Our heroine was suddenly in a very different place in her life.Now, she’s just in a different place period, and nobody seems to know where she is. Per the title, one of our Thursdays is missing. However, that leaves one remaining. The fictional Thursday has noted her counterpart’s absence, even if no one will own up to it. She’s on the case—which is just as well. Things are getting somewhat contentious in her book. This volume, for the first time, delves into the real nitty-gritty of what it is to be read day in and day out. We get a lot of new information about the BookWorld, in part because there’s new info to be had. Fforde recreates his creation in the opening chapter. It’s fiction; he can do that. Also new is Sprockett. As literary characters go, this mechanical manservant falls somewhere in the intersection of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, Matt Ruff’s electric negroes, and Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl. He’s a welcome addition to the series. While Fforde has added several new elements this time around, other familiar aspects are absent. This novel takes place almost entirely in the BookWorld. I quite missed the cast of RealWorld (or Outland) characters, but as I became more engaged in the story being told, I missed what was left out less. The Next books are beloved for their unique and affectionate brand of literary satire. That’s very much in evidence here. In addition to lampooning the classics, there are plenty of playful references to Fforde’s contemporary peers. But on top of that, it’s not a half-bad mystery plot that Mr. Fforde has penned.The one thing we can count on from any Fforde offering is the author’s trademark wit and humor. His idiosyncratic cleverness is abundantly on display, so I’ll leave the last words to him:“Budgetary overruns almost buried the remaking before the planning stage, until relief came from an unexpected quarter. A spate of dodgy accounting practices in the Outland necessitated a new genre in Fiction: Creative Accountancy. Shunned by many as ‘not a proper genre at all,’ the members’ skills at turning thin air into billion-dollar profits were suddenly of huge use, and the remaking went ahead as planned. Enron may have been a pit of vipers in the Outland, but they quite literally saved the BookWorld.Bradshaw’s BookWorld Companion (16th edition)”
    • 2/5
      Proof once again that I don’t like fantasy and that I’m not that crazy about satire, One of Thursdays is Missing was a very difficult book for me to finish.Jasper Fforde is a very popular writer, and his Thursday Next series has found loads of loving fans (all starting with The Eyre Affair). I, however, am not a fan.I found Fforde’s writing to be very clever, but I want my books to be more than clever. I want to care about the characters. I didn’t care about Thursday or any of the supporting cast. I just wanted it to be over.Fforde prolonged the fantasy plot with puns and jokes about the world of books. True, these jokes were occasionally funny, but the comic aspect of the novel was not enough to hold my interest.One of Our Thursdays was my first book in the series, and I am sure it will be my last. I am sure that lovers of fantasy and satire will enjoy One of Our Thursdays is missing, and I truly wish that I had like the novel more.
    • 2/5
      Maybe it's been too long, or maybe I was too hyped up, but I couldn't finish this newest installment of the Thursday Next series. It was just kind of blah and disappointing. Bummer.
    • 4/5
      Hippy written Thursday returns, trying to keep her cast on board with a less sociopathic Thursday and find out what happened to the real Thursday.The absolute best part of this book is the trip into the Real World, where written Thursday discovers smells and people talking at the same time. Written Thursday is a change of pace from regular Thursday, since she's pretty clueless, which just makes the normal Fforde ridiculousness, well, more ridiculous. A robot butler! Enough said.
    • 4/5
      One of Our Thursdays is Missing is the 6th book in the Thursday Next series. I’ve read all 6 books and after the first in the series this one is my favorite. The series had a little dip in the middle but even the ‘worst’ in the series was still a good fun read. I will say, in my opinion, this should not be the first Thursday book you pick up to read. While I think it’s OK as a stand alone novel, to truly enjoy the book you need to have read at least 2 of the previous 5 books, so much happens a new reader will likely be lost. Though if you’re going that far why not read all 5? Jasper does a great job at humor, writes a pretty good mystery and tells a compelling story. A word of warning, quite a bit of the humor is meta humor, which Jasper only occasionally points out to the reader (kind of like an saying “See how I did that? Now can you find any more?”). I find it fun to read just looking for his play on words.We start with Thursday, but we’re not really sure which Thursday. It soon becomes apparent we’re supposedly following the written one. She’s an agent of JAID (the Jurisfiction Accident Investigation Department) and is sent to investigate the litter strewn around Conspiracy (the genre) from a book that dissolved while traveling overhead. Commander Red Herring would like Thursday to come to a quick and obvious conclusion to her investigation. On her way she runs into a stranger who says ‘One of our Thursdays is Missing’. Shortly after which she saves Sprockett from a mob, who then becomes her willing butler and side kick. Sprockett is a cogman, a clockwork android, and a butler by trade who can make a mean martini in no time flat (as long as you keep him wound). Things just keep getting weirder and weirder.Thursday's missing and she’s supposed to head the peace talks with Racy Novel (another genre), the Men in Plaid seem to be chasing our Thursday around, her man Whitby is having problems with his back story, and the cast of her book is getting mutinous between the story changes and her constant absences leaving her understudy to do her job. All in all it’s another royal mess in Bookworld and it’s up to the written Thursday to try to fill some big shoes.