Standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy

20. The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime; Jasper Fforde (400 pages)

Japer Fforde is my favorite modern author.

There. I said it.

His Thursday Next stories, as well as these from the NCD (Nursery Crime Division) are the funniest, smartest, brilliant books I've read in...ever.

This time, Goldilocks (yes, it's really her) is found dead, mysterious explosions are being investigated, the Three Bears show up, the homicidal Gingerbread Man has escaped for the mental ward and is on the loose, and Punch and Judy move next door to our hero, Inspector Jack Spratt (yes, that Jack Spratt...his first wife died. She ate only fat, after all).

Lots of stories, but it all works.

How good was it? I read a 400 page book in half a day, around a three year old child and a husband and three dogs and regular life.

If you haven't picked up any of Fforde's work, I suggest you begin with The Eyre Affair...and one of the things that makes him so cool, he has websites for all his books!

You can even buy NCD and Thursday Next hats and shirts and more. It's the best.