The sequel to The Eyre Affair, and, like the first, a gift from my sister-in-law. These are uniquely funny and smart books that are not exactly what you would call science fiction but depend upon the premises that a) certain people can jump around in time, changing the course of history and b) certain people can jump in and out of books, interact with their characters, and, if they wish (though it is not legal) change the course of the story. It's a strange, familiar, and fun world: special tubes allow one to travel in minutes from England to Japan, and cloning has reintroduced dodos and mammoths into the ecosystem. On the other hand, airplanes have not been invented.

In this second installment our hero Thursday Next learns to 'book-jump' from Miss Havisham -- yes, the Miss Havisham; she is a reckless driver, and you don't want to come between her and her prize at a rare-book sale. Next needs to extricate the villain Acheron Hades from Poe's The Raven, where she imprisoned him at the end of the last book, so that the Goliath corporation will in turn return her her husband, Landon, who they eradicated from time (but not from her memory).