Something Rotten is the other book in the series, but I couldn’t find it before taking this photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

She lives in an alternate universe, where the world is still fighting the Crimean War, literature is prized and time travel possible. She has a pet dodo bird, Pickwick, though he was an early model from the infancy of dodo bird cloning, so he can’t fly.

Jasper Fford’s Thursday Next is a Literary Detective, traveling through famous novels to protect them from change.  In some cases (like the infamous Jane Eyre), her failure results in the far better conclusions we’ve always known.

If you have a depth of classic literature knowledge, then each book is chock-full of humorous asides and clever in-jokes.

If, like me, you simply pretend to have knowledge of classic literature at parties, each novel has mystery, romance and a dodo bird to keep you entertained.

I’m not a big hit at parties

But you should still read this series,

Megan

“Cold-blooded murder just isn’t Thomas Lang’s cup of tea.  Offered a bundle to assassinate an American industrialist, he opts to warn the intended victim instead — a good deed that soon takes a bad turn.  Quicker than he can down a shot of his favorite whiskey, Lang is bashing heads with a Buddha statue, matching wits with evil billionaires, and putting his life (among other things) in the hands of a bevy of femmes fatales.  Up against rogue CIA agents, wannabe terrorists, and an arms dealer looking to make a high-tech killing, Lang’s out to save the leggy lady he has come to love… and prevent an international bloodbath to boot.” -Description on back of The Gun Seller

1. It’s hilarious and clever and everything you could want from a spy spoof.

2. It was written by Hugh Laurie.  Yes, that Hugh Laurie. Which has led me to frantically hope House gets canceled, so he’ll write another novel.

3. I just told you it’s hilarious – what are you waiting for?

Don’t judge me for ending my sentence with a preposition

For what are you waiting sounds ridiculous,

Megan

You know what’s a great way to get some sewing done?

Leave the fabric on the kitchen table, go upstairs and curl up in bed with a good book.

I haven’t quite worked out how that’s going to end in a bridesmaid dress.

But I certainly know what I recommend you read while avoiding the work – Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series.

(Public Service Announcement: these books can be used for avoidance no matter what the action, wedding-related not required.)

“The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats.  But being bright and thoughtful beyond her years, Maisie studies her way to Cambridge, then serves as a nurse on the Front during the Great War.  Now, it’s the spring of 1929, nearly ten years after the Armistice and Maisie has just opened up her own detective agency.  Her first assignment, a seemingly open-and-shut infidelity case, will reveal a much deeper, darker mystery, forcing Maisie to revisit the horrors of the war and the ghost she left behind.  Refreshing, absorbing, and beautifully rendered, Maisie Dobbs marks the beginning of an incredible new series.”  ~Book jacket of Maisie Dobbs, first book in the series

A British-style mystery… and not only because it’s set in 1930s London.  Maisie Dobbs is everything I love in a mystery – it’s character based, clever, and not scary.

I can’t handle scary. The only kind of book I don’t read?  Thriller.

I get enough suspense thinking every bump in the night is a killer breaking into my home, with rope, knives, and feathers at the ready.  (I can only assume there will be some level of tickling involved in any horrible form of torture.)

Back to Maisie.  A strong, independent woman investigating crime against the backdrop of a London still struggling for normalcy after the devastation wrecked by WWI.  I love Maisie. I love her dad and Lady Rowan, her benefactor.  I love her assistant, Billy Beale, and her childhood friend Priscilla.  I love the insight the series gives me into the impact World War I had upon England and I love imaging women wearing cloche hats.

Most of all, I love how every book touches me.

1930s fashion is dream world,

Megan