This month we look at the work of local author Jasper Fforde…
North Books’ alternative book club edges away from the usual convention of only inviting readers to discuss a single book (though this can happen from time to time) to opening up our evenings to a more general celebration of our shared love of storytelling and the people behind the words on the page.
Thoughts in the pot so far include asking readers to choose any work from a given writer to encourage a wider discussion of the author’s creativity and output. We are also interested in dedicated genre events as well as putting poets, journalists, songwriters and historians in the mix. Fiction, non-fiction and everything in between.
It’s a book club but it’s an evolving one. It will be one thing one month and something else the next time we meet – always, though, it will belong to the group and it will be shaped by you. The only common denominator will be words – and a conversation about them.
JOIN US
Participation is free if the book is purchased in advance from North Books at a 10% discount. Otherwise it is £5 on the night which goes towards refreshments. To join the group, please email Jules on jules@northbooks.co.uk although please note the group is currently at capacity and a new book group is being planned for 2025.
You are welcome to come along to the first session for free to see if it’s your cup of tea.
THE WORK
A selection of the Jasper Fforde titles currently in stock.
On our second session of 2025, Wednesday 9 April, let's talk about the work of Hay-based author Jasper Fforde.
Jasper has written books in four series: The Thursday Next series of which there are seven books, the Nursery Crime series (two), the Last Dragonslayer, series (four) and the Shades of Grey series (three). The latest published book is Red Side Story , the long awaited sequel to Shades of Grey, which is still in hardback but out soon in paperback. He’s also written two standalones: Early Riser, a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, and The Constant Rabbit, an allegorical story of racism and xenophobia in UK, also labelled as 'My Brexit Anger Book'. It's about anthropological rabbits living in the UK as a demonised other. One thing is certain; you can’t categorise Fforde’s writing, nor can you predict what his next book will be like. Some readers relish this and others shy away from it. He is not Anne Tyler.
Jasper Fforde spent twenty years in the film business before debuting on the New York Time Bestseller list with 'The Eyre Affair' in 2001. His 18th novel, 'Dark Reading Matter', will be published in the UK/USA in 2025.
Fforde's writing is an eclectic mix of genres, which might be described as a joyful blend of Comedy-SF-thriller-Crime-Satire. He freely admits that he is fascinated not just by books themselves, but by the way we read and what we read, and his reinvigoration of tired genres have won him many enthusiastic supporters across the world.
Amongst Fforde's output are police procedurals featuring nursery rhyme characters; a four-book series for Young Adults about Magic and Dragons set in a shabby world of failing magical powers,'Shades of Grey' (2011) a post-apocalyptic dystopia where social hierarchy is based on the colours you can see, 'Early Riser' (2018), a thriller set in a world in which humans have always hibernated, and 'The Constant Rabbit' (2020), an allegory about racism and xenophobia in the UK.
Fforde was born in England but has recently decided to adopt the nationality of where he lives when he heard that: 'When you truly love Wales, you are Welsh'.