Born: January 11, 1961 in London, England 
Website: http://www.jasperfforde.com/
Jasper Fforde began his writing career working on movies such as “Goldeneye,” “The Mask of Zorro,” and “Entrapment.” After nineteen years in the film industry, Fforde decided to write his own stories. Ten years and 76 rejection letters later, Fforde’s first novel, “The Eyre Affair” was published and his heroine, literary detective Thursday Next was born.
Fforde’s Thursday Next series consists of seven books and was a hit in both the U.K. and U.S. Thursday Next’s novels are set in an alternative world where Wales is a socialist republic and pets are clones of extinct animals. Thursday’s job as a literary detective includes rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from their books and mending plot holes.
Fforde has also started three other series. The Nursery Crimes books feature Jack Spratt solving Humpty Dumpty’s murder and Goldilocks’ disappearance. In 2010, Fforde released “Shades of Grey,” which is set in a color-blind, post-apolcalyptic world where your worth is determined by which color you can see. His latest series is a for the young adult genre. “The Last Dragonslayer” was released in the United States last year and it’s sequel “The Song of the Quarkbeast” will arrive later on this year.
Fforde is known for his comedic absurdity and rich worlds. My favorite example of his oddity is in his Thursday Next novels. As a literary detective Thursday can jump in and out of books and while she is inside a book she communicates with her colleagues via the footnoter phone where they talk in the footnotes.
Bibliography:
Thursday Next
Nursery Crime
Shades of Grey
The Chronicles of Kazam
Novel Escapism 