Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The Fourth Bear: Out of the Nursery and Into the Fire

OK, so despite the fact that it's been a month since my last blog (I feel like I should be saying 20 'Hail Shakespeare's'), I actually have been reading incessantly like the little paper-consuming wiggler that I am. But being that I am also a little state-moving and graduate-course-finishing wiggler, the blog, alas, is the first to suffer from neglect.

One of the little finger-licking delights that I've just put away is the next installment in Jasper Fford's Nursery Crime series, The Fourth Bear. If you've never heard of him before, Jasper Fford is a Welsh author who deals out literary crack in the form of crime novels involving literary humor that only goofy gonzos like me will appreciate. I lapped up his first series--starring literary detective Thursday Next--so fast that the silverware and the tablecloth went down with it. I *heart* Jasper Fford. And yes, I am a dork.

Although I must say I don't unabashedly adore the Nursery Crime series as much as the Thursday Next series, there's no way that I wouldn't give it a positive review. No matter how you slice him, Fford is a culinary genius. But although the jokes are somewhat limited to beanstalks and people living in shoes (as opposed to the comparable high-brow humor of the other series), Fford still manages to be clever and wacky enough to keep me knife-and-forking it.

What can I say about the storyline for this book...Goldilocks is there, a bunch of bears, a lot of explosions, an alien or two and a couple really huge cucumbers. No, really.

Oh, and a homicidal Gingerbreadman. How could I forget.

Tastiness: Like a bunch of blackbirds in a pie...or a peck of pickled peppers...
Special Sauce: Oh Jasper, you clever lad.
Recommend? Yes!