Thursday Next is a literary detective for SpecOps, the special branch of the police that handles those things that can't quite be handled by the regular police force. For the most part, she spends her time authenticating Milton and dealing with overzealous Baconites (the preferred term for those people who staunchly believe that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's plays, and go door-to-door evangelizing this). But when an original Dickens manuscript is stolen, Thursday suspects that a certain ultimate-evil criminal is behind the theft and is put on the case.
I can't even count the number of times I've read this ridiculously clever and funny book. Filled with wordplay, pointed commentary about both classic literature and pop culture, and tons of creative oddness (A secret society dedicated to catching asteroids! Re-engineered extinct species as pets! Streetfighting gangs of surrealists and post-modernists! A new religion that worships the GSD, the Global Standard Deity!), I find something new to enjoy every time I read it. If you've spent more than 10 minutes discussing books with me any time in the last 15 years, I've probably recommended this book and its series at least twice. So I'll do it again: read this book. It's awesome.
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