I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Lost and Gone Forever (1999) & Keep It Together (2003).

These two records are a one-two punch of absolute greatness. If there were musical justice, we’d be sick of both of these records from being overplayed so much. There’s not a bad song, and at least three killer singles, on each one.

Lost and Gone Forever: Guster’s third album is an unreasonably good one. The songs are all tight and catchy, the production is really warm and inviting, and the choruses just make you want to sing along to every one. Major highlights include: “Barrel of a Gun,” “Fa Fa,” “All the Way Up to Heaven,” and “Two Points for Honesty.” And the rest of the record is just as strong. The album is paced very well, has catchy songs and, astonishingly, wasn’t a huge seller.

Keep It Together: Keep It Together alters Guster’s self-imposed restrictions on their music. For this album they add bass and drums (as opposed to drum n’ bass) and really embellish their already fabulous sound. They don’t go too far; in fact, they retain the essentials of their sound while highlighting new aspects. The single “Amsterdam” would have been a #1 hit if the right people had heard it. The rest of the album has wonderfully varied tempos and styles and yet all of the songs are just as catchy. A truly great album.

[READ: Fall 2006] The Fourth Bear.

I have been a fan of Jasper Fforde (which we naturally pronounce FuhFord) since his first fantastic book The Eyre Affair. A mind-bending, literature-loving book that every book lover should read. It concerns Thursday Next, a detective in the Literary Division (because literature is very very important in this altered reality) whose primary function is correcting shenanigans in classic literary works (in this case, Jane Eyre has been tampered with to give it a happy ending). The series is funny and thought-provoking and generally wonderful.

Jasper started a new series in 2005 with The Big Over Easy, and The Fourth Bear is the sequel. Jack Spratt is the main detective from the first book. He returns in this book with a hidden past that comes back to haunt him. Like the people he investigates, Spratt is a PDR (Person of Dubious Reality). His main investigation concerns the Gingerbreadman, an escaped, violent killer (made of actual Gingerbread!) whom Jack had incarcerated earlier. The plot follows Jack’s progress as he gets mixed up with the Three Bears and the fate of Goldilocks as well as his abusive neighbors Punch and Judy (who are marriage counselors, of course). The already fanciful series gets even stranger with the further adventures of Ashley, the alien (extra terrestrial) who falls for Mary Mary.

Oh, and did I say that it is all hilariously funny?

Well, it is. All of it, from the punny names, to the twists of characters, to the mocking of reality (both in the nursery rhyme world and the real world). Naturally, the more familiar you are with literature in general, the funnier the books are.

This all sounds like it’s a big crazy mess, but Fforde knows of what he speaks. The Thursday Next series plays fast and loose with the “facts” of classic literature. And this series emphasizes and undermines the “rules” of nursery rhymes. Fforde clearly loves stories, and he loves playing with the conventions and expectations of stories. If this sort of mirth is your cup of tea, then run out and read this series (best to start with The Big Over Easy). In fact, start with The Eyre Affair. I feel the Thursday Next series is better overall, possibly because the world of Nursery Rhymes is somewhat more limited than the world of literature in general. Nevertheless, I’ll be reading Fforde’s next book from whichever series it’s in (In fact, it is a Thursday Next book next, called First Among Sequels …the title alone should tell you whether you’ll like the book!)