Today's Read & Giveaway: The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde

What's a retired SpecOps enforcement officer to do when called back to active duty? Thursday Next is expecting to be head of the Literary Detectives but instead ends up as chief librarian of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat at Fatso's Drink Not Included Library. Besides adjusting to the new job and recuperating from an assassination attempt (not to mention remembering the name of that library), Thursday is also worrying about her kids—the two she knows about and the one who, for now anyway, exists only in her memory.

Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer's day, a long-running sitcom, one's life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when. And can we do anything vaguely useful until it does?

In the case of a good bottle of wine, probably not much—although the very act of consumption might make one believe otherwise. A well-lazed summer's day should not expect too much of itself either, and sitcoms never die. They simply move to a zombielike existence in rerun heaven. Of the remaining two—the end of one's life and that of our species—regular subscribers to my exploits will recall that I had seen myself die a few years back, and given my past record, it was probable that much useful work would be done between then and now. As to the end of our species, the possibility of annihilation was quite real, well documented, and went by the unimaginative title of Astroid HR-6984. (p. 1)

—The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde (Penguin USA / Viking, 2012)

The Giveaway: Thanks to the generous marketing team at Viking, I have a hardcover finished copy of Jasper Fforde's The Woman Who Died a Lot, the latest Thursday Next novel, to give away to one of my readers. Because I'm doing the mailing myself, this giveaway is open internationally. To enter for a chance to win, just fill out the following form. I'll pick a winner on November 13 using a random number generator. All personal information will be deleted once a winner is confirmed. Good luck!