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The Well of Lost Plots cover art

The Well of Lost Plots

By: Jasper Fforde
Narrated by: Gabrielle Kruger
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Summary

Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'.

Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409.

But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it...

With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'.

Please note: Chapter 13 has been intentionally omitted from this title.

©2003 Jasper Fforde (P)2003 ISIS Publishing Ltd

What listeners say about The Well of Lost Plots

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  • 23-10-14

Well of no plot

I've really enjoyed the previous books in this series, they've followed a pattern of 90% funny tongue in cheek detective novel, mixed with 10% literary references.

And what literary references there were tended to be very mainstream - nursery rhymes for example.

Works well if you have zero interest in classic literature or struggle to tell a verb, adverb, noun or pronoun from an adjective, and works even better you are more of an English lit. buff.

This one alas is 10% plot & 90% pretentious PHD in English lit "oh my a pun about conjunctive vowels!". It felt like wading through the most boring English lesson ever taught by someone who has dedicated their life to the collected works of Jane Austen, in desperate search of a story.

Its clear he is trying to educate people in a "fun" way about verbs, what motivates the characters of Wuthering Heights etc, but it comes at the expense of the plot. And unless you have a HUGE fascination with, say Wuthering Heights its just tedious.

Only the fact the previous books were so good stopped me giving up. Now I sort of wish I had.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great follow up book

keeps the plot going over the other books and still works as a stand alone book

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very enjoyable book!

This book has some very interesting and unusual ideas. A really good read. Also very amusing.

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1 person found this helpful

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Very funny!

I love this series - such a clever concept for bookworms. Being secretly smug for recognising the literary references which makes it sound stuffy but this is anything but - Thursday Next jumps from the real world into Book World by reading herself into a book and meets so many wonderful characters. I particularly like the 'generics' who gradually become filled out into proper characters. A whole new well- thought-out world awaits the reader and, lucky us there's a whole series.

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  • 30-12-17

wrong

Swindon is in Wiltshire not Wessex. I thought authors were supposed to research these things. THIS IS A VERY BASIC MISTAKE. HOW COULD THE AUTHOR GET THIS WRONG

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1 person found this helpful

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Clever & funny

Both a tribute and a satire on fiction and modern life. A book for lovers of books!

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Simply Brilliant!

What made the experience of listening to The Well of Lost Plots the most enjoyable?

The narrator really 'worked' for the book, she was a very convincing Thursday Next. The story is so unusual, I couldn't get into the series when I read them, but listening to the audiobooks is perfect!

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Most excellent wordplay

Cracking read, imaginative and so funny, the story moves fast paced and I really enjoyed it

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Great book but not the best in the series

So far I’ve loved the series, I enjoyed this book as well very much, however I was very disappointed with miss Havishams death

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not my cup of tea, but well read

Jasper Fforde is something of a cult amongst his fans and I don't want to disrespect that.

Both friends and 'the algorithm' have suggested his books to me, however, whilst the basic idea of travelling into books is intriguing, once there I wasn't grabbed. I'm afraid I persevered with the Thursday Next books but am glad I've finished them now.

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