Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (1796)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
40x40

Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4) in Books

Nov 26, 2019  
Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4)
Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4)
Jasper Fforde | 2004 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller
7
8.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
In his previous Thursday Next books Fforde has explored the world inside books and how Thursday - literary detective from an alternate reality from our own - interacts with its denizens. Now he turns that on its head.

Thursday, along with her young child Friday, decides it is time to leave the Bookworld behind and return to the real world, despite the danger this poses from the all powerful Goliath corporation. They have already erased her husband from existence and wanted to do the same to her. But Goliath are now benign and repentant. But that doesn't mean that Thursday can have a happy ending. Not only does she need to get her husband back, but unless Swindon can win the Superhoop croquet world cup there will be an unstoppable chain of events leading to the end of the world.

As usual with Fforde the plot is complex, convoluted and wildly improbable but that doesn't stop him pulling the reader into the slightly off-kilter world of the Nexts. As could be expected the humour is packed in tight. Literary jokes, in world jokes, real world jokes. Playing with language and words in every inventive way possible. All of these are his stock in trade and he uses them to great effect here.

This was for me a little weaker than the first three books, possibly because now back in Thursday's world is a little more mundane than seeing works of literature from the inside but there are still plenty of laughs to be had and the various plot strands will keep you guessing
  
    Spark My Muse

    Spark My Muse

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Podcast

    If you enjoy the likes of Parker Palmer, Mark Nepo, Krista Tippett, Maria Popova, John O Donohue,...

40x40

Darren Hayman recommended Into the Gap by Thompson Twins in Music (curated)

 
Into the Gap by Thompson Twins
Into the Gap by Thompson Twins
1984 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I want to write a book on the history of miming to music on TV. No, I don't, but I want to read it. I’m often surprised at how early the convention of miming to music on TV was subverted. From Ringo riding an exercise bike instead of drums on ‘I Feel Fine’ to the Faces playing football, it seems to be a wink to the camera that’s way ahead of anything else you would see at the time. The Thompson Twins seemed to be the first band solely designed to extend this joke. As a 12-year-old, I was fascinated by the fact I couldn't hear any of the instruments they were playing. They would stand behind guitars, congas and double basses but all you could hear were Prophet 5s and Emulators. I knew it was done as some kind of statement that I couldn’t fathom. These were artists, like the ones who Tony Hancock meets in The Rebel; proper oddball, hat-wearing pranksters. The backs of all the 12-inch singles from Into The Gap joined together to make a map of an island that was in the shape of the members' heads. The cassette version had an hour of alternative versions and mixes. They were a treasure trove for a geeky obsessed fan; they paid so much attention to detail. I now see their endless mixes and alternate versions of songs as a gateway into dub music; the idea that things could be transformed as much by subtracting things as adding them."

Source