This is the seventh book in Fforde's Thursday Next series, and is just as weird and silly as all the rest. Set several years after its predecessors, The Woman Who Died A Lot finds Thursday retired from literary crime-fighting, both in books (with Jurisfiction) and out (with Spec Ops). A bit hesitantly, she takes on the job of chief librarian of the Swindon All You Can Eat At Fatso's Drinks Not Included Library. The alternate-universe England where this series is set has all manner of oddities, including re-engineered dodo birds, a single religion whose god gives plenty of advance notice for smitings (Thursday's teenage daughter Tuesday is in charge of creating a smite shield to save Swindon), and time travel, which occurred on the theory that it was invented in the future and has recently been revoked as it was discovered that no one, in fact, did invent time travel. (Thursday's son Friday was to have led the time-policing ChronoGuard later in life, but now finds himself without purpose.) Oh yeah, and Thursday has to deal with fake versions of herself sent by the evil Goliath Corporation, as well as the possibly even more evil Aornis Hades, who has the ability to manipulate memories and has a vendetta against Thursday.
OK, show of hands... who's confused after reading that paragraph?
That's OK. It is a confusing book, just like the rest of the books in this series. But that doesn't mean they're not fantastic books, filled with a zany mix of high- and low-brow humor. And in that respect, The Woman Who Died A Lot is awesome, particularly for the library crowd. Thursday's foray into librarying is full of quips about dealing with crazy people, handling extreme budget cuts, and the extreme measures sometimes necessary to pull in overdue items (dawn raids, anyone?). There's even a shout-out to Nancy Pearl. Yeah, Fforde is buttering up his librarian readership, but you know what? I'm totally fine with that.
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