Jasper Fforde spent his early years as a focus puller in the film industry. It was during that time he began working on writing, trying to find a balance between the genres of Literary and Absurd. This led to his first novel, then called Who Killed Humpty Dumpty which was soon followed by its sequel, The Fourth Bear.
After shopping these around (to no effect) for a number of years he wrote The Eyre Affair, which was published in 2001 and debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list. Six other Thursday Next novels followed, along with the eventual publication of the now renamed Big Over Easy and Fourth Bear, the Last Dragonslayer series for young adults, and the dystopian series Shades of Grey.
Fforde's writing style is based on a concept he calls the "ordinarification of fantasy," introducing fantastic and absurd people and situations into everyday life and having the characters accept them as commonplace and ordinary. It's primarily through a combination of this idea and a unifying cheek and satire that his fantastical plot threads hold together. Jasper Fforde lives in Wales with his wife and two children, and flies his Rearwin Skyranger in his spare time.
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