Jasper Fforde is the author of the Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes series. He lives in Wales. Shades of Grey, to be publlished December 29 by Viking, is part social satire, part romance, and part revolutionary thriller. In it, a fragmented society struggles to survive in a color-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape--but don't worry, it's not that serious.
On your nightstand now:
Better Aerobatics by Alan Cassidy, the bible of aerial maneuvers, a sport to which I remain, despite hours of practice, utterly useless. Kluge by Gary Marcus, a fascinating nonfiction book that attempts to explain how much of human thought is compromised by a brain that has been cobbled together by evolution. It offers an explanation of our appalling memory and how many decisions are based on emotion rather than careful thought. Beyond the Blue Horizon by Jonathan Frater, a book that retraces the steps of the 1929 Empire flying route to Australia and how much the world has changed since then--and how much it hasn't. Joy in the Morning by P.G. Wodehouse, a first edition, but very dog-eared. It pays to have a Wodehouse within easy reach in case of night-time emergencies.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Still fresh after all these years. After battling my way through endless dull reading primers, I could finally read and chose this book from my parents' bookshelves. It was like borrowing the car after passing my driving test. I was reading for its own sake and nothing more. I moved on after that--or sideways, perhaps--but never lost my affection for the book and its bizarre mix of high erudition and surreal humour. I still have that same book in my library today.
Your top five authors:
P.G. Wodehouse because he makes me laugh; Bill Bryson because he makes me think; Mark Twain because he makes me think and laugh; Kurt Vonnegut because he's got a wild imagination; Alexander McCall Smith because he displays a degree of compassion and humanity rarely seen in popular books these days
Book you've faked reading:
Any technical manuals regarding DVDs or computers. It's a guy thing.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and West with the Night by Beryl Markham. Whenever I see a copy of any of these, I buy it, so there is always one in the house to give away. It's no good lending books; you never see them again.
Book you've bought for the cover
Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. I'd never read him before. And it certainly didn't disappoint. I saw him give a talk about the book, and he had us all set our phones to ring so that we'd know the sound you hear when the fire alarm finally stopped ringing after a school shooting. Very eerie.
Book that changed your life:
Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester. (U.S. edition: The Stars My Destination, which is a rubbish title.) The book that made me want to be a writer.
Favorite line from a book:
"She entered the room like a galleon in full sail." --P.G. Wodehouse.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Catch-22. Didn't want it to end, but it did. Second reading was fun, but it never had the frisson and excitement of first discovery.