“The little village of Obscurity is remarkable only for its unremarkableness. Passed over for inclusion into almost every publication from The Domesday Book to Thirty Places Not Worth Visiting in Berkshire, the hamlet is also a cartographic omission, an honor it shares with the neighboring villages of Hiding and Cognito. Indeed, the status of Obscurity was one thought so tenuous that some of the more philosophically inclined residents considered the possibility that since the village didn't exist, they might not exist either, and hurriedly placed "existential crisis of being" on the parish council agenda, where it still resides, after much unresolved discussion, between "church roof fund" and "any other business.”
—Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear
REVIEW: The Fourth Bear (Nursery Crime #1), by Jasper Fforde
The Fourth Bear, by Jasper Fforde
Published: 2006
378 Pages
Adult Fiction/Science Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★★ / ★★★★★
Synopsis in a Single Sentence:
The Gingerbreadman is on the loose again, and although they can’t come to an agreement on whether he’s actually a cake or a biscuit, it’s up to Jack Spratt and Mary Mary of the Reading Nursery Crime Division to get him back behind bars - while simultaneously discovering what happened to Goldilocks after she left the three bears’ house…
Click “Read More” for the full, spoiler-free review!
Just finished reading The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde. So good! Fforde never ceases to amaze me with his writing!
And now according to my book ban rules, I can buy a new book finally! I think I’m going to go with The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness? Or should I go with the second Monstrumologist book by Rick Yancey? Opinions?
It’ll take quite a while to get here from TBD, so in the meantime I’m going to finish off some books I laid aside for The Fourth Bear (a book of Gwen Harwood poetry, Tales of Shakespeare, and The Little Mermaid - the last two are on the 1001 Children’s Books to Read Before You Grow Up list).
i decided to pick up The Fourth Bear again and i think that if some things involving the appearance of characters were played down and certain parts of the book removed entirely, wes anderson would have a field day with it.
the characters are very quirky and the humor in the book is reminiscent of the humor in anderson’s movies. also, the impossibility of the characters’ personal histories are similar to how outrageous anderson’s characters’ achievements are.
i really don’t know how he would manage to do it considering fantasy isn’t really his forte, but it’s undeniable that The Fourth Bear is very anderson-esque
Day 45- Recommend 8 books
1. Jasper Fforde- The Fourth Bear
2. Stephen King- It
3. Khaled Hosseini- The Kite Runner
4. Stephen King- Under the Dome
5. Jack London- White Fang
6. Tony Kushner- Angels in America. Part One: The Millennium Approaches
-I know it’s technically a play, but still fantastic.
7. Edgar Allen Poe- “The Cask of Amontillado”
-Technically a short story, but I don’t care.
8. Dean Koontz- Watchers
Reading Recap - April 2013!
For the first time this year, I’m going to post a reading recap! Mostly I’m bringing it back because I’m super excited and happy about the amount that I read in April! 7 books is quite a feat - and while I haven’t reviewed them all yet (or rather the ones that I want to review), I should have two new reviews up (for The Fourth Bear and another) after I hand in the assignment that’s currently freaking me out, which will be on Thursday.
But, without further ado, the books I read this month!
One day to French GCSE...
Its one day to my French reading and writing exam which is by far the most important exam of the whole french quartet (Thats Orals, Listening, reading and writing). I have just returned from my weekly French tutoring, where I did a mock paper and didn’t do as well as I hoped. Immediately after the lesson, while waiting for the bus, I decided that I really needed to revise a lot more for the exam and that I would start as soon as I got back. I thought, I know I’m prone to procrastination and I’m quite lazy but I will regret it if I get a poor mark just because I didn’t revise enough. And I don’t want to be thinking, “Hey I could have done better, if I had revised. But its too late now! Why didn’t I revise!” after the french exam. So I told myself I’d get home and start revising.
Then I got on the bus and spent the travel time reading a great comedy fiction by Jasper Fforde (“The Fourth Bear”). I got off and I’d recovered from my fit of work keenness which on hindsight really frightens me because it is very unlike me. So I decided, hey, whatever happens, happens. And yeah I’ll probably regret this later but so what.
Then a slightly more sensible part of me realised that I really needed to plan for the future more. So I decided to regret everything before hand so it’ll save the hastle after the exams. So I walked home thinking: “Hey I could have done better, if I had revised. But its too late now! Why didn’t I revise!”
And now I’m safe in the knowledge that I can now completely fail revise without any reprecussions as I have done all the regretting before hand.
So the moral of the story is plan ahead and don’t leave everything to last minute, kids!
