The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde

“I’ve got most of the office reading “Jane Eyre” at the moment in case something unusual happens. Nothing so far."

There’s a very high quirk factor in The Eyre Affair, and a few too many ideas too, but I was won over thanks to the fact that most of the gags are rotten puns and/or literary allusions that flatter the reader into laughing at their own cleverness. The world is a whimsical alternative reality, strikingly similar to that in Aberystwyth Mon Amour, involving slippage between literature and reality, a never-ending Crimean War and the Socialist Republic of Wales.

I like the central gag: that in this reality, proper literature has the status of celebrity or sport. Hence gangs of Marlovians riot against Baconites in the streets and teenagers swap Fielding stickers in the stairwells of council flats. If only…