Beyond the Book

Fforde's first book, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001, and was followed by Lost In A Good Book (2002), The Well of Lost Plots (2003) and Something Rotten (2004). All revolve around, female detective, Thursday Next who lives in a parallel world to our own where books are paramount, the Crimean War is still ongoing and dodos are the pets of choice.

Fforde says that he felt the need to take a break and, to that end, resurrected the concept for a novel that he'd first written in 1993-94, which became The Big Over Easy. 

He was planning to publish a new Thursday Next novel this year, but I don't see anything in the publishers catalog for this year, so presumably any new "Next" book has been pushed into next year. 

Trivia: The name, Thursday Next, was inspired by Fforde's mother who used to refer to next Thursday as 'Thursday next'!

This article was originally published in July 2005, and has been updated for the July 2006 paperback release. Click here to go to this issue.

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