It is 1957 and Daphne Du Maurier, the famous novelist, is called to London because her husband, an eminent ex-soldier, and now an official at Buckingham Palace, has had a nervous breakdown. After arranging his care, Daphne takes solace in her research on the overlooked brother of the Brontë sisters, Branwell. Soon she is corresponding with the self-appointed curator of Branwell's, an ex-librarian called Mr Symington, and so begins an enduring, distant relationship.

The stories of Du Maurier and Symingon form two strands, and these are joined by a third, which is written (in the first person) by a young PhD student who is also taking solace in the story of the Brontës. Like Daphne and Mr Symington, she too is having marital difficulties, and like them she finds that the story of the Brontës absorbs her and allows her to escape.

Most good novels, I find, drag me in to their kingdom, and as I am reading them I feel as though I am living alongside them, sharing their air; with some I just share the story of the characters' outer lives, but with others I come to know their inner worlds too. I like this sort of novel the best. Usually it is just interesting to hear another mind at work; but sometimes it becomes more startling than this, and there were times, when I was reading Daphne, that I stopped mid-paragraph because the characters' thoughts were so similar to my own. For instance here the PhD student thinks she sees a familiar figure going down the street:

But I don't think it was actually her, I just wanted it to be her, like when my mother died, and in the months that followed, I'd see the back of her beige raincoat, rounding a corner ahead of me, or her face behind a misted window on a bus, swooping past me when crossing the road.

Yes, that's exactly it - and up until I read that I'd thought I was the only one who experienced it.

Each of the main three characters in this book are haunted by the ghosts of not only the dead but also the living and the imagined. Daphne Du Maurier is haunted by Rebecca, the heroine of her famous novel, and also 'the Snow Queen', her husband's mistress. She is also haunted, briefly but disturbingly, by 'men in trilby hats'. The PhD student (her name is only mentioned towards the end of the novel), is haunted by the first wife of her husband, the beautiful and gifted Rachel. Picardie allows this to chime satisfyingly with Jane Eyre:

He doesn't need an alarm clock, though there is a clock on the little table his side of the bed, and old wind-up one that ticks, very quietly, and sometimes I wake up in the night and hear it ticking , and wonder if it was Rachel's clock, and if it is waiting for her, marking time...

The walls of the bedroom are red - a dark red, not a colour that I'd ever choose, it's too reminiscent of the nightmarish red room that Jane Eyre was locked up in as a child...

The irascible Symington is haunted too - mainly by past treacheries and mistakes - but also, like Du Maurier and the PhD student, by Branwell Brontë. According to Picardie's Du Maurier Branwell is 'the failure of the family, haunted by his sense of that he achieved nothing in his life, by the spectre of his unwritten masterpieces, his unpublished novels, his unfinished paintings; tormented by the knowledge of unfulfilled promise, of hope turned to ashes, dust.'

This turns out to be the most damaging ghost of them all.

The three strands are skilfully woven together - each episode just as absorbing as the others. Apart from Du Maurier and the Brontës, J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan makes an appearance too. I learnt a lot and it made utterly compelling reading. There are some gorgeous passages on writing and that obsession most readers, writers and librarians share - books. The ending is unexpected and satisfying. Highly recommended.

When special operations, literary detective, pet Dodo owner, daughter of a chronic time traveler and niece of eccentric inventors, Thursday Next is approached to help capture an evil villain aptly named Hades who’s suspected of stealing a Dickens’ manuscript, she barely thinks twice before saying yes.She soon finds herself in Swindon, her hometown, and a place full of memories, an ex-fiancé and more evil villains.

Jasper Fforde has crammed time-travel, books within books, tons of literary references, extinct pets, cops and robbers, detectives, magic and more into this humorous post-modern* novel. Characters travel on airships instead of airplanes, take vacations into classic gothic novels, join organizations focused on catching meteors and change their name to John Milton. Riots break out between fanatics of conflicting art movements.

This book has everything a lover of reading (especially the classics) could want, and more. It has a lot of what a fan of science fiction might enjoy as well. Devotees of detective novels won’t be disappointed either.

I’d seen the title of this book before someone recommended it to me. I must have known it had appeal to detective novel enthusiasts because I didn’t give it a second thought. When my daughter’s friend, who knew I enjoyed reading about time-travel, recommended it to me I thought I’d give it a go.

Unfortunately I didn’t get into it until well into the second half of the book. I’d mostly been confused by the plot and sub-plots, not to mention the names of characters. I spent a lot of time wondering why Fforde chose to name a police chief Braxton Hicks. And I’d heard the phrase runcible spoon, but didn’t know what it was nor why a doctor would be given that name.

In the end I sort of liked the book. I could see that it was probably really funny to someone who got all the jokes and literary allusions. I do believe that Jasper Fforde is probably a genius – but I’m just not the right person to appreciate it. It did make me want to re-read Jane Eyre though, and that’s a good thing.I plan on reading the second book in this series. I’m betting I like it better, now that I know what is going on, to a degree.

*I’d not understood what post modern meant until I read this book and the "ah-ha" light went on over my head.

When Brian [James] told me he was working on a modern version of Wuthering Heights, I figured I was going to have to read it. Bad English major that I am, I've managed to somehow never read the majority of the classics. And I harbor nearly no desire to do so. 

The first time I picked up the book and started to read it, I knew I couldn't do it. So I put it back on the shelf to try again at another time. The next time I picked it up, it seemed doable.

I found the language of this book to be really frustrating. For the most part, it was a smooth ride, even if the wording was a lot different than what I'm used to in this day and age, but any time Joseph showed up, I found myself readily lost, and unsure whether I should attempt to make sense of his rantings or just leave him behind entirely.  Generally, I'd give up and skip ahead to the next part that I could actually follow.

That being said, the parts of the story as related by Mrs. Dean, I really enjoyed. The story of Heathcliff and Cathy is nothing if not compelling. I saw a film version once as a child, but remember little of it, and was interested to be reminded what it was all about. But I have to say, as much as I liked certain parts, had Brian not been working on a version, I'm not sure I would have made it all the way through. No offense to Emily Bronte, as I can see why its such a Classic and always will be, I can't wait for Brian's version. Because I know I won't have any trouble following in it or getting into it.