Hi there, I´ve just read the eyre affair and would like to know which books I have to go through before reading the next Thursday Next books - as I´m from Germany I didn´t do the classic english literature at school and am now a little bit disadvanced. It would be great if somebody could give me a list or something with the books I should read, to get the jokes. thanks a lot!

To get all of the jokes and allusions you'd need to read an awful lot of literature. Certainly more than I have. But none of the later books are so closely tied to a particular novel as The Eyre Affair is to Jane Eyre, so I would say you can easily enjoy the books without having to swat up on your english lit.

(I haven't even read Jane Eyre...)

And welcome to the Fforum. Help yourself to food from the buffet. We have a wide range available. Drinks are in the kitchen.

------
That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Jane Eyre; I read and enjoyed it after reading the Eyre Affair. I think read the Nextian books and choose the ones you think you would like to read.

Kitchen! Where? The kitchen hasn't been seen since the 80s after the dog ran off with it.


<edited for punctuation and the introduction of bad grammar>



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2009 12:03AM by BibwitHart.

Hello and welcome! I haven't read most of the classics mentioned either, and I still enjoyed the books and understood what was going on. If you're really confused about a particular book that's mentioned, there's always Wikipedia.

I'm curious about the Nursery Crimes books, however--it seems to me that Jasper does not explain the nursery rhymes as much as he does the classic literature, and I would think there are different nursery rhymes that are well-known in different languages. Can one of our resident native-to-a-non-English-speaking-country fforumites provide some insight?

It's true that you don't need to read the classics to appreciate rest of the Nextian books. None are as closely tied to a novel as 'The Eyre Affair' was. I am curious about extra-national nursery rhymes though.

On a side issue, my Hungarian housemate told me that if you eat a lot of carrot then you can whistle better.

Egon.

Wow, thanks for all the answers and the warm welcome. I can´t help you with the nursery rhymes, there are many in german, but I don´t know some which are as popular as "Mary had a little lamb" for example.
Besides, since Jane Eyre, I like to read the classics, normally I wouldn´t have bothered with them, but now I have a good motivation to look into them (I allready bought Great Expectations - as Ms Havisham is mentioned in the second book)

Nursery rhymes have no overlap between different languages. Even their basic themes differ - english rhymes tend to be much more often little stories, where the popular german ones teach basic language skills like counting and body parts.

But that is no problem, for me it was a welcome challenge. There are good websites out there presenting nursery rhymes, and finding out about them was half the fun of reading the book.

(Jasper mentions somewhere that his editors were able to sell the rights for a russian translation of TBOE. I am still wondering if that one will ever show up.)

As for books, I havn't even read Alice in Wonderland yet, but the figures and themes are so present in popular culture that I had very little problems to understand the allusions. Although it took some time to figure out the UA of W Cat joke.

Hi Michelleeight.

Help yourself to pie.

While it might not help you much, some of the posts in the individual book forums discuss a lot of the character names, many (most?) of which are jokes in their own right.

It makes a change directing someone to those fforums, rather than from them to here, but they may be of some help.

You may find the guides to the Nextian Universe and The Questionarium both from the main site, useful.

A tour of Mother Goose Village in Rock City's Fairyland Caverns would familiarize you with most of the nursery rhymes-
then again, it's rather difficult to drive to America from Germany... ;)

Welcome! There is cocoa to go with the sweet pies, if you can tell them from the savory pies...

**************************************
Signature or shameless self-promotion?
You decide:

[www.myspace.com]

**************************************

Huh! It is easy to tell them apart! the sweet are on the left and the savoury are not.

But make sure you are facing the right way when you look at them.

--------------------------------------------------------
The morning after is the first day

....and who's left?

....who's on first?

Lauda!

Hu Michelle, welcome. I'd have a look at PSD's guides to all the books, which are around somewhere else in Mr Ff's website - they help to explain the jokes and the allusions, which aren't just to literature; they encompass an awful lot of other things as well.