Road Trip!! For a writer?

So I have to ask: Is driving 5 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours to listen to a speech and have a new book signed by one of your favorite authors a logical thing to do?

It's not like I'm a stalker or a fan-boy. But I enjoy the work of Welsh author Jasper Fforde, and it's not like he's readily accessible here in the United States.

I look at it this way. I like to drive. The trip will give me a chance to explore a new city. Even better, I get the opportunity to visit another bookstore.


Plus, I get to hear Fforde speak -- and to buy a signed copy of his latest book, Early Riser.


Fforde writes what he calls absurdist fiction. The tagline for the new novel is, "Every winter, the human population hibernates."

I first discovered Fforde's work while perusing a going-out-of-business sale at my local Borders (remember Borders?) I don't like to take advantage of a bookseller's failure, but it was pricing items up to 75 percent off. I could not resist adding to my TBR stack, and off I went. I saw one of Fforde's books, and fell in love with the title: One of our Thursdays is Missing. I often buy books because I like the title -- an interesting color or cover also catches my eye -- and I have found a lot of favorites that way.

I did not know then that the Thursday book is the sixth in a series. Nor did I know I was reading it out of order. But I didn't care. It was funny, clever, and literate. I found the other titles in the series, and read them more-or-less in order.

The series takes place in Book World, a universe where fictional characters are real and live a regular life, only to come out and "work" when someone is reading the novel. Books have a certified copy that cannot change, because it would change the plot in every book that was printed. Indeed, the first tale in the series, The Eyre Affair, relates an illegal attempt to change the ending of Jane Eyre. Enter book detective, Thursday Next, a member of the literary police, who is assigned the task of stopping such things from happening. Thursday has a special talent -- she is one of the few people who can jump from real life to book life, and back again.

It's not only Book World that Fforde has dreamed up. He created a Nursery Crimes division of the literary police, and has its detectives investigate the death of Humpty Dumpty and look into the case of the three bears. He's also written a Young Adult series about magic -- from a golden age that has long since passed -- and dragons and quarkbeasts. "Quark," says the quarkbeast.

His books are filled with literary references, from the mundane to the obscure. Amusing, witty, sometimes laugh out loud literary references.


I know I am not smart enough to get all of them. When I do, I feel smug and brilliant. When I don't, I usually know it's there, and can guess the context.

Or  I'll look it up, as Casey once advised.

My all-time favorite? While attending a party in Book World, Thursday Next looks down to see a young fellow tuging on her skirt. He was asking her, "If you please, draw me a sheep" No. 2 on my list is when Thursday somehow leaps out of a Shakespeare play with Hamlet in tow. She asks her mother if he can stay, or if he should return to Book World. Her mother thought he should stay in the real world for a while "Then he won't need five acts to make a decision."

How many acts do I need? I really want to go.