Saturday, August 6, 2011

Fforde-a-Thon Book 1: The Eyre Affair


Ten Things I Love About The Eyre Affair

1. The breeding of extinct animals as pets.
"I ... took Pickwick for a waddle in the park. I let him off the leash and he chased a few pigeons before fraternizing with some feral dodos who were cooling their feet in the pond. They splashed excitedly and made quiet  plock plock noises to one another until it was time to go home."
2. A world where there are still airships.
"I took a small twenty-seater airship to Swindon. It was only half-full and a brisk tailwind allowed us to make good time. The train would have been cheaper, but like many people I love to fly by gasbag."
3. Officer Spike Stoker
"--SpecOps-17: Vampire and Werewolf Disposal Operations. Suckers and biters, they call us. ... By way of explanation he tapped a mallet and stake that were clipped to the mesh partition."


4. The Global Standard Deity
"'Does the GSD encourage such blatant personal attacks?' I asked.
Joffy shrugged.
'Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't,' he answered. 'That's the beauty of the Global Standard Deity--it's whatever you want it to be. And besides, you're family so it doesn't count.'"
5. Landen Parke-Laine
"His voice sounded the same. The warmth and sensitivity I had once known were still there. ... He had gone slightly gray but he wore his hair in much the same manner. There were slight wrinkles around his eyes, but they might just as easily have been from laughing as from age."
6.Translating carbon paper
"'We'll start with a plain piece of paper, then put in a Spanish carbon, a second slip of paper ... then a Polish carbon, more paper, German and another sheet and then finally French and the last sheet ... there.' ...
'Write something on the first sheet. Anything you want.'
'Anything?'
Mycroft nodded so I wrote: Have you seen my dodo?
'Now what?'
Mycroft looked triumphant.
'Have a look, dear girl.'
I lifted off the top carbon and there, written in my own handwriting, were the words: ¿Ha visto mi dodo? 'But that's amazing!'"
7. SO-27 Operative Bowden Cable
"He led me around one of the desks to where Bowden was sitting bolt upright, his jacket carefully folded across the back of his chair and his desk so neat as to be positively obscene."


8. Mycroft Next
"It certainly looked impressive, but not all Mycroft's devices had a usefulness mutually compatible with their looks. In the early seventies he had developed an extraordinarily beautiful machine that did nothing more exciting than predict with staggering accuracy the number of pips in an unopened orange."
9. Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester!
"He silenced the dog with a shout and then stopped to feel his leg; it was obvious that he had hurt it quite badly. I felt sure that a man of such dour demeanor must surely be very angry with me, yet when he espied me again, he smiled kindly and gave me a broad wink, placing a finger to his lips to ensure my silence. I smiled back, and the rider turned to face the young woman, his brow furrowing once more into a grimace as he fell back into character."
 10. Thursday Next (of course)
"I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a small mirror. A woman with somewhat ordinary features stared back at me. Her hair was a plain mousy color and of medium length, tied up rather hastily in a ponytail at the back. She had no cheekbones to speak of and her face, I noticed, had just started to show some rather obvious lines."
What is your favorite thing about The Eyre Affair? Have I convinced you yet to give this book a try? (If you've read it recently, leave a link to your post about the book!)

Taking refuge in a Good Book,
K


Support our site and buy The Eyre Affair on Amazon or find it at your local library. I bought my own copy of this book and have put it to good use!

8 comments:

  1. Plock plock!!! I love the idea of extinct animals as pets. I would totally want my own dodo if I wasn't mortally afraid of birds. Beaks frighten me.

    My daughter reread the entire Harry Potter series this week, so I might have to climb on your bandwagon and reread all of Thursday Next. I still haven't read the newest.

    And I forgot about the translating carbon paper! Almost as cool as a babelfish!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the Shakespeare quoting machines! I want to have machines that you can put money in and they'll quote Shakespeare for you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I downloaded this one for my kindle because I have heard great things about it. I am looking forward to eventually reading it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love this series - as for my favourites, you've covered most of them from the first book - though I love the People's Republic of Wales and the idea of Cheese-smuggling, too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great way to write a book review!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Karen - I love the idea too! The mammoth migration in the second book sounds a bit stressful though. ;) And I definitely think you need to climb on the bandwagon!

    Jenny - They sound pretty awesome, don't they? I can totally picture them in my head.

    Reviewsbylola - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

    Tracy - The People's Republic of Wales is definitely a high point! Fforde has some hilarious ideas for it. Maybe he needs another series set there.

    Jenners - Thanks! It's hard to write about a series that I've written about before so I'm having to be extra creative.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I totally forgot to post a comment on this one! Oops! So, here I am commenting late again! :)

    LOVED this book!! (My review is going up tomorrow finally.) I love the list you made and many would be on my list too! Wouldn't that translating carbon paper be brilliant?!? I'm really excited to read more, but alas I'm on a book buying ban! Maybe I will sneak and check it out from the library instead! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Tif - I'm so glad you loved it! I am behind on reading posts but I'll go over and check yours out!

    ReplyDelete