What do you think?
Thursday Next #8
Dark Reading Matter
Will literary Special Ops agent Thursday Next find her happy ending? The outrageous, heartfelt conclusion to Jasper Fforde's New York Times-bestselling series, which began twenty-five years ago with The Eyre Affair, will have you, Dear Reader, laughing out loud.
Swindon-based Literary Detective Thursday Next is embarking on her eighth and final adventure, Dark Reading Matter, and she is well aware of the fact. The problem is, others are too. Old foes and new are plotting a terrible revenge: to disrupt the narrative and make Dark Reading Matter not just unreadable but unpublishable. Thursday can’t let that happen and needs to use all her guile and narrative trickery to unmask the antagonists.
It won’t be easy. The Martians have broken out of their HG Wells novel and threaten both the real world and the Bookworld. Agents from a higher reality want unfettered access to the Dark Reading Matter, the realm where deleted books and unrealised literary ideas end up. A Gateway to Hell has opened up at Wantage’s Shakesmania, the nation’s second-worst Shakespeare theme park, and the cosy world of Enid Blyton has been hijacked by Ultra Right Wing Nationalists. With Reality Field Distortion experiments going haywire, a partially redacted donkey, a Bookworld on the brink of losing its imaginative energy to Big Tech and a murderous stamp collector with Philaticide on their mind, Thursday has to navigate a tightrope of borderline unusable narrative devices to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion.
It’s a tall order, but Thursday has several secret weapons: her own adaptability, her husband, Landen, a host of stalwart friends and ultimately the most loyal compatriots she can call upon—her readers.
Swindon-based Literary Detective Thursday Next is embarking on her eighth and final adventure, Dark Reading Matter, and she is well aware of the fact. The problem is, others are too. Old foes and new are plotting a terrible revenge: to disrupt the narrative and make Dark Reading Matter not just unreadable but unpublishable. Thursday can’t let that happen and needs to use all her guile and narrative trickery to unmask the antagonists.
It won’t be easy. The Martians have broken out of their HG Wells novel and threaten both the real world and the Bookworld. Agents from a higher reality want unfettered access to the Dark Reading Matter, the realm where deleted books and unrealised literary ideas end up. A Gateway to Hell has opened up at Wantage’s Shakesmania, the nation’s second-worst Shakespeare theme park, and the cosy world of Enid Blyton has been hijacked by Ultra Right Wing Nationalists. With Reality Field Distortion experiments going haywire, a partially redacted donkey, a Bookworld on the brink of losing its imaginative energy to Big Tech and a murderous stamp collector with Philaticide on their mind, Thursday has to navigate a tightrope of borderline unusable narrative devices to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion.
It’s a tall order, but Thursday has several secret weapons: her own adaptability, her husband, Landen, a host of stalwart friends and ultimately the most loyal compatriots she can call upon—her readers.
Hardcover
First published October 6, 2026
About the author
Jasper Fforde
48 books13.4k followersFforde began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plot lines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.
Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.
Since then, Jasper has added another six to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, 'The Big Over Easy', Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, 'The Fourth Bear', the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disappearance can finally be revealed.
In January 2010 Fforde published 'Shades of Grey', in which a fragmented society struggle to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape.
His latest series is for Young Adults and include 'The Last Dragonslayer' (2010), 'Song of the Quarkbeast' (2011) and 'The Eye of Zoltar' (2013). All the books centre around Jennifer Strange, who manages a company of magicians named 'Kazam', and her attempts to keep the noble arts from the clutches of big business and property tycoons.
Jasper's 14th Book, 'Early Riser', a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, is due out in the UK in August 2018, and in the US in 2019.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. He has a Welsh wife, two welsh daughters and a welsh dog, who is mad but not because he's Welsh. He has a passion for movies, photographs, and aviation. (Jasper, not the dog)
Series:
* Thursday Next
* Nursery Crime
* Shades of Grey
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Want to Read
March 29, 2017March 29, 2017: I'm just sitting over here waiting for any sort of update on Dark Reading Matter, trying not to go more insane.
September 20, 2017: I need more Thursday Next
April 10, 2018: I might be starting to go insane.
June 21, 2019: And we wait.
September 20, 2017: I need more Thursday Next
April 10, 2018: I might be starting to go insane.
June 21, 2019: And we wait.
Want to Read
May 1, 2021Gee... I hope that Goliath and ChronoGuard haven't forbade Jasper Fforde from writing the book...
Read
November 25, 2020• Book 1: The Eyre Affair ★★★★★
• Book 2: Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
• Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
• Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★
• Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★
• Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★★★
• Book 7: The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★★
• Book 2: Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
• Book 3: The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
• Book 4: Something Rotten ★★★★★
• Book 5: First Among Sequels ★★★★
• Book 6: One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★★★
• Book 7: The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★★
Want to Read
April 29, 2016Its now 2016 and this book has not appeared. Disappointing.
Edit - its now 2022 and still nothing yet its still listed
Edit - its now 2022 and still nothing yet its still listed
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As always, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Like many long-time Thursday Next readers, I have been waiting for this final instalment of the series for a loooong time, and it... well, unfortunately, it did disappoint.
A few months after the events of "The Woman Who Died a Lot", Thursday and Landon are taking a holiday to Wantage, just down the road, Tuesday is still experimenting with anything she can get her hands on and Martians are invading Bookworld.
The whole thing felt rushed, despite being published around 12 years after the previous book came out. It felt like there was a lot going on, but never really seemed to go anywhere, and the 'interlude' in the last third felt self-indulgent and a completely unnecessary author ego-boost.
Fforde's use of language is, as always, nothing short of genius, but -- although sort of explained why later in the book -- parts of the text were extremely difficult to read due to missing letters (mi ing le ers), substitutions (i with an accent instead of ee), etc., which meant most of the time in these sections I was trying to figure out what the heck the author meant instead of a smooth, enjoyable reading of the book.
I'm not sure whether when writing "The Eyre Affair" this was how Fforde intended the story to end, but it fell flat and is one of the weaker books in the series. A disappointing finale to a fantastic series.
Like many long-time Thursday Next readers, I have been waiting for this final instalment of the series for a loooong time, and it... well, unfortunately, it did disappoint.
A few months after the events of "The Woman Who Died a Lot", Thursday and Landon are taking a holiday to Wantage, just down the road, Tuesday is still experimenting with anything she can get her hands on and Martians are invading Bookworld.
The whole thing felt rushed, despite being published around 12 years after the previous book came out. It felt like there was a lot going on, but never really seemed to go anywhere, and the 'interlude' in the last third felt self-indulgent and a completely unnecessary author ego-boost.
Fforde's use of language is, as always, nothing short of genius, but -- although sort of explained why later in the book -- parts of the text were extremely difficult to read due to missing letters (mi ing le ers), substitutions (i with an accent instead of ee), etc., which meant most of the time in these sections I was trying to figure out what the heck the author meant instead of a smooth, enjoyable reading of the book.
I'm not sure whether when writing "The Eyre Affair" this was how Fforde intended the story to end, but it fell flat and is one of the weaker books in the series. A disappointing finale to a fantastic series.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I really wanted to enjoy this book. It felt like Christmas had arrived early when #Netgalley and #Hodder& Stoughton approved my request. I started reading with trembling fingers turning the pages, I giggled, I chortled at the sardonic tone, I smiled at the puns and witty playfulness aimed at the publishing industry. This was a Thursday Next series and I couldn’t have been happier.
Until I wasn’t.
The blurb explains why. ‘The Martians have broken out of their HG Wells novel and threaten both the real world and the Bookworld. Agents from a higher reality want unfettered access to the Dark Reading Matter, the realm where deleted books and unrealised literary ideas end up. A Gateway to Hell has opened up at Wantage's Shakesmania, the nation's second to worst Shakespeare theme park and the cosy world of Enid Blyton has been hi-jacked by Ultra-Right Wing Nationalists. With Reality Field Distortion experiments going haywire, a partially redacted donkey, a Bookworld on the brink of losing its imaginative energy to Big Tech and a murderous stamp collector with Philaticide on their mind, Thursday has to navigate a tightrope of borderline unusable narrative devices to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion.’
That description doesn’t include all the characters who’ve featured in the series. It reminded me of the Avengers films, where every superhero needs their five minutes of screentime otherwise they have hissy fits. When you have sequences that achieve that goal, the plot expands to epic proportions that makes Homer look positively tightly edited.
That’s not all. The borders of reality suffer from such transparent fragility it’s not always possible to discern which is which. For instance, the sequences featuring the Goliath sub-plot is written in a different font, where words become phonetic or simply lose letters. It requires real care to ensure you’re correctly reading the text. It was meant to convey coded communication I assume – I found it annoying and rather indulgent because it took me out of the story. I wondered if that was deliberate.
There are so many interesting ideas in the story yet none of them got chance to develop because we’re rushed on to the next sub-plot. It’s like being in an express train, wondering if the stations actually were that pretty as they flashed past. I wish Fforde had focused his attention on one or two concepts so it allowed the wit and the surreal details to truly grow.
I won’t say much about the climax of the story beyond this: it’s just as rushed so it left me feeling frustrated and disappointed. I’d love to know what the author wanted to do with this story because it feels so muddled and rushed that I can’t see its point.
I found myself thinking of other lengthy series and how they ended (if indeed they ever did – just sayin’ Patrick Rothfuss and George RR Martin!). It’s a thankless task, trying to ram as much as you can into a story – like packing a suitcase without knowing what the climate will be like for your destination! That’s what’s happened in Dark Reading Matter and the bulging pages provide their own warning.
Until I wasn’t.
The blurb explains why. ‘The Martians have broken out of their HG Wells novel and threaten both the real world and the Bookworld. Agents from a higher reality want unfettered access to the Dark Reading Matter, the realm where deleted books and unrealised literary ideas end up. A Gateway to Hell has opened up at Wantage's Shakesmania, the nation's second to worst Shakespeare theme park and the cosy world of Enid Blyton has been hi-jacked by Ultra-Right Wing Nationalists. With Reality Field Distortion experiments going haywire, a partially redacted donkey, a Bookworld on the brink of losing its imaginative energy to Big Tech and a murderous stamp collector with Philaticide on their mind, Thursday has to navigate a tightrope of borderline unusable narrative devices to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion.’
That description doesn’t include all the characters who’ve featured in the series. It reminded me of the Avengers films, where every superhero needs their five minutes of screentime otherwise they have hissy fits. When you have sequences that achieve that goal, the plot expands to epic proportions that makes Homer look positively tightly edited.
That’s not all. The borders of reality suffer from such transparent fragility it’s not always possible to discern which is which. For instance, the sequences featuring the Goliath sub-plot is written in a different font, where words become phonetic or simply lose letters. It requires real care to ensure you’re correctly reading the text. It was meant to convey coded communication I assume – I found it annoying and rather indulgent because it took me out of the story. I wondered if that was deliberate.
There are so many interesting ideas in the story yet none of them got chance to develop because we’re rushed on to the next sub-plot. It’s like being in an express train, wondering if the stations actually were that pretty as they flashed past. I wish Fforde had focused his attention on one or two concepts so it allowed the wit and the surreal details to truly grow.
I won’t say much about the climax of the story beyond this: it’s just as rushed so it left me feeling frustrated and disappointed. I’d love to know what the author wanted to do with this story because it feels so muddled and rushed that I can’t see its point.
I found myself thinking of other lengthy series and how they ended (if indeed they ever did – just sayin’ Patrick Rothfuss and George RR Martin!). It’s a thankless task, trying to ram as much as you can into a story – like packing a suitcase without knowing what the climate will be like for your destination! That’s what’s happened in Dark Reading Matter and the bulging pages provide their own warning.
currently-reading-series
June 10, 2023What bothers me is that Pickwick's been stuck in the dark reading matter for more than ten years.
Want to Read
September 9, 2024We're finally getting this one now, too?? JASPER WHERE IS NURSERY CRIME 3.
October 11, 2026
It's been 14 years and I'd about given up on another Thursday Next novel. Lo and behold, Jasper still had more to say.
I think what inspired this was the prevalence of LLMs to hoover up all the content of books regardless of copyright, and of the market being flooded with e-versions of AI-generated stories. It's a major plot point here.
The Hades family is involved in the nefarious schemes, of course, and the Martians from the three-volume set (?) of The War of the Worlds are threatening to take over the Bookworld. Without a Prose Portal, how will Thursday stop them?
Jasper pulls out all the metafictional stops in this one. I mean, he even drops himself into it at one point (sort of) and the characters have to reconcile themselves to the idea that they are fictional. There's fictional, and then there's the realm of the Dark Reading Matter where all the unpublished work has been relegated. Even Ambrose Bierce's grave is there. (He doesn't have one - he disappeared in Mexico.)
I could include innumerable quotes that are hilarious and biting in satire, but why spoil the fun? Fans of Thursday Next will want to read this regardless, and I don't want to spoil it for you. I will state that there is a truly groan-worthy pun dropped in ten pages before the end, that has been set up a couple hundred pages earlier. It gets him out of a major plot dilemma. Jasper, you rascal, you have no shame, and it's so much fun.
I think what inspired this was the prevalence of LLMs to hoover up all the content of books regardless of copyright, and of the market being flooded with e-versions of AI-generated stories. It's a major plot point here.
The Hades family is involved in the nefarious schemes, of course, and the Martians from the three-volume set (?) of The War of the Worlds are threatening to take over the Bookworld. Without a Prose Portal, how will Thursday stop them?
Jasper pulls out all the metafictional stops in this one. I mean, he even drops himself into it at one point (sort of) and the characters have to reconcile themselves to the idea that they are fictional. There's fictional, and then there's the realm of the Dark Reading Matter where all the unpublished work has been relegated. Even Ambrose Bierce's grave is there. (He doesn't have one - he disappeared in Mexico.)
I could include innumerable quotes that are hilarious and biting in satire, but why spoil the fun? Fans of Thursday Next will want to read this regardless, and I don't want to spoil it for you. I will state that there is a truly groan-worthy pun dropped in ten pages before the end, that has been set up a couple hundred pages earlier. It gets him out of a major plot dilemma. Jasper, you rascal, you have no shame, and it's so much fun.
October 6, 2026
My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the gift of an eARC of this book. The thoughts and opinions contained in this review are as unbiased as I can make them.
Okay, so, wow.
I've just spent the last month and a half reading through the previous seven volumes in the Thursday Next series in anticipation of reading this one, and when I say this is most definitely my favourite of the lot, I almost feel like I'm selling the book short. It's been twelve years since book seven (The Woman Who Died a Lot) came out but the gap doesn't show in the style and substance of Fforde's writing.
I'm not going to lie, for maybe the first third of this one I was a little bit worried. To begin with it reads like really bad fan fiction, or like someone gave ChatGPT the prompt to write a new Thursday Next but badly, and I honestly wondered if he'd lost that spark. But then it all clicked in place and suddenly I couldn't decide if Fforde was a certified genius, or just certifiably insane. Or maybe both.
If you thought the first seven books were a bit fourth-wall-breaking and surreal then you ain't seen nothing yet. Without giving away any spoilers, this one has all the action and introspection you could ever want, and is so self-referential it's damned near solipsistic. There's even a bit of authorial self-insertion going on that would leave Micheal Moorcock a little in awe.
Is this a good end to the series? Hell yeah! Is it worth grabbing a copy and inhaling it as soon as it hits the shelves? Also hell yeah! A pretty much note-perfect way to end the series, and I definitely recommend it to all fans of Thursday Next.
Okay, so, wow.
I've just spent the last month and a half reading through the previous seven volumes in the Thursday Next series in anticipation of reading this one, and when I say this is most definitely my favourite of the lot, I almost feel like I'm selling the book short. It's been twelve years since book seven (The Woman Who Died a Lot) came out but the gap doesn't show in the style and substance of Fforde's writing.
I'm not going to lie, for maybe the first third of this one I was a little bit worried. To begin with it reads like really bad fan fiction, or like someone gave ChatGPT the prompt to write a new Thursday Next but badly, and I honestly wondered if he'd lost that spark. But then it all clicked in place and suddenly I couldn't decide if Fforde was a certified genius, or just certifiably insane. Or maybe both.
If you thought the first seven books were a bit fourth-wall-breaking and surreal then you ain't seen nothing yet. Without giving away any spoilers, this one has all the action and introspection you could ever want, and is so self-referential it's damned near solipsistic. There's even a bit of authorial self-insertion going on that would leave Micheal Moorcock a little in awe.
Is this a good end to the series? Hell yeah! Is it worth grabbing a copy and inhaling it as soon as it hits the shelves? Also hell yeah! A pretty much note-perfect way to end the series, and I definitely recommend it to all fans of Thursday Next.
Want to Read
February 11, 2026Jasper Fforde writes exceptional books of satirical 'what-if' sci-fi but not. ‘Dark Reading Matter’ is the eighth and final Thursday Next book, set for release around September 2026 according to various sources. It will be the conclusion of this uniquely popular series. Bring it on Jasper! Satirical note: Dame Nellie Melba (1861–1931) the renowned Australian operatic soprano was famous for her extended farewells. A habit that gave rise to the Australian idiom ‘doing a Melba’ prolonging retirement or a goodbye. Like Nellie Melba, Thursday Next is well worth waiting for!
August 25, 2021
It’s like the Chronicles of St Mary’s had a baby with The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it came out a librarian. I loved it.
October 11, 2026
When I use the word “masterpiece”, I mean it. And this one is a masterpiece.
Dark Reading Matter was the satisfying end to the Thursday Next series and well worth the decade long wait. It made me laugh, made me cry, made me feel that love is true. Fforde’s love for literature jumps out from the page, and there are so many intricate and fantastic callbacks to previous books in the series.
I am so grateful to exist in the same universe as this series. Thank you.
Dark Reading Matter was the satisfying end to the Thursday Next series and well worth the decade long wait. It made me laugh, made me cry, made me feel that love is true. Fforde’s love for literature jumps out from the page, and there are so many intricate and fantastic callbacks to previous books in the series.
I am so grateful to exist in the same universe as this series. Thank you.
October 7, 2026
A fun ending to one of my most favorite book series.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This was a highly anticipated book for me. The publication date has been pushed back so many times that the excitement just increased. However, I'm afraid to say I was left disappointed. It perked up a bit at 70% when the author was heavily mentioned, but this book just didn't seem to fit in with the other 7. It was missing something for me and this felt like an anticlimactic ending to the whole series.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
October 8, 2026
When I say that Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite novelists and the Thursday Next series one of my favourite series and then I add that this eight and (probably) final book in the series came twelve years after the last, then you will know how very excited I was to get my hands on an eArc.
There is no way to easily sum up the series so far except to say that Fforde is a wildly inventive, anarchic, clever, well-read, original writer and the Thursday Next books are like nothing you will have ever read before. Our heroine is an intelligent, courageous, wise cracking literary detective and librarian, who goes into books to ensure they don't deviate away from the author's intent and whose career is dedicated to taking down wrongdoers. All these threads come together in this eighth book which takes on the rise of populism, the threat of AI and corporate greed in a wildly entertaining, meta, fourth wall breaking ride. It's not always an easy read, the reader has to do some of the work, but it's absorbing nontheless.
If you are new to Fforde then this is not the book for you, go buy or borrow The Eyre Affair and embark on a new book love affair some of us have been indulging in for over twenty years. Lucky you! If, like me, this book has been on your 'please come out soon' list for many years then you will not be disappointed.
There is no way to easily sum up the series so far except to say that Fforde is a wildly inventive, anarchic, clever, well-read, original writer and the Thursday Next books are like nothing you will have ever read before. Our heroine is an intelligent, courageous, wise cracking literary detective and librarian, who goes into books to ensure they don't deviate away from the author's intent and whose career is dedicated to taking down wrongdoers. All these threads come together in this eighth book which takes on the rise of populism, the threat of AI and corporate greed in a wildly entertaining, meta, fourth wall breaking ride. It's not always an easy read, the reader has to do some of the work, but it's absorbing nontheless.
If you are new to Fforde then this is not the book for you, go buy or borrow The Eyre Affair and embark on a new book love affair some of us have been indulging in for over twenty years. Lucky you! If, like me, this book has been on your 'please come out soon' list for many years then you will not be disappointed.
August 21, 2026
I’m reasonably familiar with the world of Thursday Next so I should have been ready for this book. I wasn’t ready for it. The reader is dragged from one version of unreality to another more unreal to another a bit more real. And back again. There are characters who know that they are characters. The author turns up on a tour of Wales. There’s a Martian invasion of Jane Eyre. Footnotes are a communication mechanism. There’s mirror writing and untranslated German dialogue. In Wantage there’s a model village of the town that is so accurate that it contains a model village of the town that is so accurate that it contains a….oh my head hurts.
It’s mind boggling to the imagination that someone has the imagination to produce something so mind boggling. Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this review copy. Though as it is a review copy who knows how much might ultimately end up forever lost as Dark Reading Matter. But I am completely confident that haddock is making a comeback.
It’s mind boggling to the imagination that someone has the imagination to produce something so mind boggling. Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this review copy. Though as it is a review copy who knows how much might ultimately end up forever lost as Dark Reading Matter. But I am completely confident that haddock is making a comeback.
October 8, 2026
A fun and energetic ending to a fun and energetic series. Everything you'd expect in a series finale...references to and wrapping up of prior plot points, visits from related series' characters, a slow section that seems vaguely out of place, and outrageous events. If you haven't read the Thursday Next series, probably best to start from the beginning. Fforde does only small reminder recaps and assumes people are already familiar with the material. The font changes and read aloud sections were a nice touch. The Kindle and hardcover versions differ slightly in non-crucial ways. IMO it's worth checking out the differences in font, format, author notes, and book "end" in the other version from what you read.
October 7, 2026
I have been waiting for a long time for this book and I was not disappointed.
Somehow the Martians have infiltrated bookworld. Someone is trying to kill Thursday, Somebody is whistleblowing on Goliath, Someone wants to get into the Dark Reading Matter very bady.
It's down to Thursday and Landen to work out what is happening. Without giving anything away, Are their enemies who they think they are.? What happens if the creator stops writing the book?
This book goes along at pace and as the Byltonians would say, Jolly good fun.
Somehow the Martians have infiltrated bookworld. Someone is trying to kill Thursday, Somebody is whistleblowing on Goliath, Someone wants to get into the Dark Reading Matter very bady.
It's down to Thursday and Landen to work out what is happening. Without giving anything away, Are their enemies who they think they are.? What happens if the creator stops writing the book?
This book goes along at pace and as the Byltonians would say, Jolly good fun.
October 8, 2026
Cracking End to a Great Series
The TN series reaches new levels of recursion - I'm surprised the book wasn't printed on a möbius strip. I'm not going to spoil any of the plot, suffice It to say that I laughed out loud at several points and some of it is landing even harder than when Jasper wrote it - you'll know those parts when you see them. The ebook suffers a bit because of (redacted) so get the print version, if you can. I have both and preferred the dead-tree experience. I'm sad to see the series end, but it isc what it is.
The TN series reaches new levels of recursion - I'm surprised the book wasn't printed on a möbius strip. I'm not going to spoil any of the plot, suffice It to say that I laughed out loud at several points and some of it is landing even harder than when Jasper wrote it - you'll know those parts when you see them. The ebook suffers a bit because of (redacted) so get the print version, if you can. I have both and preferred the dead-tree experience. I'm sad to see the series end, but it isc what it is.
October 11, 2026
I started this series in high school, and I couldn’t have anticipated being delighted the final book was published 25 years later (or that I’d read it on my phone, pregnant with my 10th kid. 2001 me has so much to learn.) This one is even more speculative than usual, with an appearance by Fforde himself, and touches on AI in writing, writers’ block, and also haddock making a comeback. Make yourself some toast and prepare to be confused by changing timelines while Thursday saves all the worlds one more time.
September 28, 2026
I knew this was going to hurt my brain, I knew it and embraced it - but I still have to say “ouchie!”
I really enjoyed this finale, but I’m definitely going to have to reread the whole series in order to make it make sense.
Fourth wall - broken
Footnotes - hacked
Future - foretold
Funny bone - tickled
Thank you Mr Fforde, may the muses ever favour you.
I really enjoyed this finale, but I’m definitely going to have to reread the whole series in order to make it make sense.
Fourth wall - broken
Footnotes - hacked
Future - foretold
Funny bone - tickled
Thank you Mr Fforde, may the muses ever favour you.
October 12, 2026
Like coming home. The most absurd, meta thing I have ever read.
Jasper did an amazing job reminding readers about any thing they might have forgotten along the way but did it in a way that wasn't an info dump.
Jasper did an amazing job reminding readers about any thing they might have forgotten along the way but did it in a way that wasn't an info dump.
Want to Read
October 10, 2021Mr Fforde, come onnnnnnnnn, when is this book going to come out??
to-read-known-series
May 19, 2026I mean this in the nicest way possible:
Pls finish it
Pls finish it
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A fitting end to the series. Long time reader of Jasper's books and this one did not disappoint.
October 8, 2026
Oh, Thursday. I did miss you.
October 11, 2026
Fforde & Thursday. Been waiting 14 years. Worth it.
Review of advance copy
A fitting end for a fantastic series. There are so many clever ideas and solutions, I genuinely don’t know how he does it. Definitely must be the muses. Thank you Jasper, this was a total blast.
August 26, 2026
I can’t tell you how privileged I feel to have read Dark Reading Matter as an ARC. I’ve been waiting for this book for yonks and now it’s here: wahoo! I loved being back with Thursday and Landen, and it’s every bit as funny and clever as Jasper Fforde’s other books.
We follow Thursday as she tackles her old enemy, Goliath, and a new one in the form of the Blyton Union of Fundamentalists - a far‑right group determined to remake the world as if it were a Blyton novel. There’s also the rather odd suggestion that she and Landen take a holiday to Wantage to visit a Shakespeare theme park, which is unusual given that they still live in Swindon. Her daughter Tuesday is a prodigy, her son Friday is in a spot of bother, and Landen doesn’t mind lending her one of his ‘day players’.
It’s chaotic, crazy fun that envelopes you in more literary knowledge than your local English teacher (I speak with authority - I had to look up a few bits!) and keeps you laughing throughout. It’s a fitting tribute to one of fiction’s bravest and best heroines.
Thank you so much for allowing me one final glimpse into Thursday’s world. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and Jasper Fforde for a free ebook of this novel in return for an honest review.
We follow Thursday as she tackles her old enemy, Goliath, and a new one in the form of the Blyton Union of Fundamentalists - a far‑right group determined to remake the world as if it were a Blyton novel. There’s also the rather odd suggestion that she and Landen take a holiday to Wantage to visit a Shakespeare theme park, which is unusual given that they still live in Swindon. Her daughter Tuesday is a prodigy, her son Friday is in a spot of bother, and Landen doesn’t mind lending her one of his ‘day players’.
It’s chaotic, crazy fun that envelopes you in more literary knowledge than your local English teacher (I speak with authority - I had to look up a few bits!) and keeps you laughing throughout. It’s a fitting tribute to one of fiction’s bravest and best heroines.
Thank you so much for allowing me one final glimpse into Thursday’s world. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and Jasper Fforde for a free ebook of this novel in return for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews