
Dark Reading Matter
A Thursday Next Novel, Book 8
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Pre-order for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
-
Jasper Fforde
About this listen
The final novel in the New York Times bestselling series: Will literary Special Ops agent Thursday Next find her happy ending?
The Dark Reading Matter is a theoretical realm that suggests that the observable bookverse can only account for 20 percent of the calculated total readable mass. Out there somewhere, possibly, is a larger and more expansive and unseeable "Dark Bookverse" that contains millions of deleted novels, slush-pile manuscripts, lost poems, forgotten pop culture references, long unheard oral tradition, stories and ideas that were still in people's minds when they died.
The Goliath Corporation hopes to exploit the Dark Reading Matter for profit, and Thursday Next is once again pitted against a familiar foe. A visitor named Roger Thatt who purports to be from Fourth Wall Publishing has some peculiar ideas of his own that require careful thought. Is Thursday and everyone she knows living in a simulation? Was her world created from scratch Last Thursday as Roger supposes, and are the books she reads the only direction in which books can be read?
With existential questions the least of her troubles and a family to take care of, Thursday must defeat the Goliath Corporation, ensure that a tear in the fabric of the Bookworld does not suck all literature from hers, and conclude her own series so she can enjoy a comfortable retirement, while dodging the threat of the worse fate imaginable for a story: The Scooby Doo ending.
©2026 Jasper Fforde (P)2026 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Big Over Easy
- A Nursery Crime
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's Easter in Reading, a bad time for eggs, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.
-
-
Total Whimsy
- By Bruce Sabin on 08-10-05
By: Jasper Fforde
-
Midnight Riot
- Rivers of London, Book 1
- By: Ben Aaronovitch
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Probationary constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he'll face is a paper cut. But Peter's prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter's ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale....
-
-
I LOVE this Book!
- By Nancy J on 02-26-13
By: Ben Aaronovitch
-
Early Riser
- A Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Thomas Hunt
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
-
-
A different book from Jasper Fforde
- By MarilynArms on 02-16-19
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Very First Damned Thing
- An Author-Read Audio Exclusive
- By: Jodi Taylor
- Narrated by: Jodi Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jodi Taylor reads the long-awaited prequel in her Chronicles of St Mary’s series, as Dr Bairstow struggles to set up St Mary’s as we know it in a world still scarred by the ravages of civil war. Ever wondered how it all began? It’s two years since the final victory at the Battersea Barricades. The fighting might be finished, but for Dr Bairstow, just now setting up St Mary's, the struggle is only beginning. How will he assemble his team? From where will his funding come?
-
-
Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
- By Sheryl on 11-05-15
By: Jodi Taylor
-
The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
- By: Tom Holt
- Narrated by: Dan Starkey, Daphne Kouma
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The team of commercial sorcerers at Dawson, Ahriman & Dawson can help with any metaphysical engineering project, large or small (though by definition they all tend to be pretty large). They can also create massive great puddles of chaos that might one day swallow up the entire universe. Take, for example, the decision to recruit a certain bearded fellow whose previous work experience mainly involves reindeer and jingle bells. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but is he really the best person to save the world from Tiamat the Destroyer, who has literally gone ballistic?
-
-
Painful. narration
- By Georgia Shopper on 12-18-23
By: Tom Holt
-
Heathcliff Lennox - France 1918
- By: Karen Baugh Menuhin
- Narrated by: Sam Dewhurst -Phillips
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.
-
-
Another great Heathcliff Lennox
- By Katydid65 on 06-04-21
-
The Big Over Easy
- A Nursery Crime
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's Easter in Reading, a bad time for eggs, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.
-
-
Total Whimsy
- By Bruce Sabin on 08-10-05
By: Jasper Fforde
-
Midnight Riot
- Rivers of London, Book 1
- By: Ben Aaronovitch
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Probationary constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he'll face is a paper cut. But Peter's prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter's ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale....
-
-
I LOVE this Book!
- By Nancy J on 02-26-13
By: Ben Aaronovitch
-
Early Riser
- A Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Thomas Hunt
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.
-
-
A different book from Jasper Fforde
- By MarilynArms on 02-16-19
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Very First Damned Thing
- An Author-Read Audio Exclusive
- By: Jodi Taylor
- Narrated by: Jodi Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jodi Taylor reads the long-awaited prequel in her Chronicles of St Mary’s series, as Dr Bairstow struggles to set up St Mary’s as we know it in a world still scarred by the ravages of civil war. Ever wondered how it all began? It’s two years since the final victory at the Battersea Barricades. The fighting might be finished, but for Dr Bairstow, just now setting up St Mary's, the struggle is only beginning. How will he assemble his team? From where will his funding come?
-
-
Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
- By Sheryl on 11-05-15
By: Jodi Taylor
-
The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
- By: Tom Holt
- Narrated by: Dan Starkey, Daphne Kouma
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The team of commercial sorcerers at Dawson, Ahriman & Dawson can help with any metaphysical engineering project, large or small (though by definition they all tend to be pretty large). They can also create massive great puddles of chaos that might one day swallow up the entire universe. Take, for example, the decision to recruit a certain bearded fellow whose previous work experience mainly involves reindeer and jingle bells. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but is he really the best person to save the world from Tiamat the Destroyer, who has literally gone ballistic?
-
-
Painful. narration
- By Georgia Shopper on 12-18-23
By: Tom Holt
-
Heathcliff Lennox - France 1918
- By: Karen Baugh Menuhin
- Narrated by: Sam Dewhurst -Phillips
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.
-
-
Another great Heathcliff Lennox
- By Katydid65 on 06-04-21
-
How to Be Eaten
- A Novel
- By: Maria Adelmann
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.
-
-
Great story & narration; i wish it were longer (sad face emoji)
- By socalconsumer on 08-12-23
By: Maria Adelmann
-
The Atrocity Archives
- A Laundry Files Novel
- By: Charles Stross
- Narrated by: Gideon Emery
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Howard is a computer-hacker desk jockey, who has more than enough trouble keeping up with the endless paperwork he has to do on a daily basis. He should never be called on to do anything remotely heroic. But for some reason, he is.
-
-
A great techno-spy-Lovecraftian-horror-comedy
- By A reader on 02-08-10
By: Charles Stross
-
Gobbelino London & a Scourge of Pleasantries
- Gobbelino London, PI, Book 1
- By: Kim M. Watt
- Narrated by: Paul Tyreman
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Find a missing book. That was the job the woman in the Doc Martens gave us. Easy money, right? Only now it seems she's actually an ancient, powerful sorcerer, and the book is a Book of Power that doesn't want to be found. It wants to tear reality apart at the seams, and it'll use anyone it can to do it. So now we've got one spectacularly displeased sorcerer, a hungry, still-missing book, a dentist with bad hygiene, and a neighbourhood having some reality issues to deal with. Plus about a day before the book turns our world - and us - inside out.
-
-
Delightful series
- By celestial on 06-23-24
By: Kim M. Watt
-
Miss Percy's Pocket Guide (To The Care and Feeding of British Dragons)
- A Miss Percy Guide, Book 1
- By: Quenby Olson
- Narrated by: Zara Ramm
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a dragon’s egg. The egg—as eggs are wont to do—decides to hatch, and Miss Mildred Percy is suddenly thrust out of the role of “spinster and general wallflower” and into the unprecedented position of “spinster and keeper of dragons.” But England has not seen a dragon since…well, ever.
-
-
Pride and prejudice and dragon
- By Silly pants on 11-07-22
By: Quenby Olson
-
The Vanishing Bookstore
- By: Helen Phifer
- Narrated by: Stephanie Cannon
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1692. On the outskirts of Salem, a bookstore stands covered in overgrown vines. Inside, a young woman hides a linen-wrapped journal under a loose floorboard and runs away, panicked by the sound of hounds barking in the distance. The bookstore vanishes into thin air…
-
-
a mixed bag
- By Anonymous User on 02-18-25
By: Helen Phifer
-
White Silence
- Elizabeth Cage, Book 1
- By: Jodi Taylor
- Narrated by: Kate Scarfe
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Cage is a child when she discovers that there are things in this world that only she can see. But she doesn't want to see them, and she definitely doesn't want them to see her. What is a curse to Elizabeth is a gift to others - a very valuable gift they want to control. When her husband dies, Elizabeth's world descends into a nightmare. But as she tries to piece her life back together, she discovers that not everything is as it seems.
-
-
Something new, but still very much Jodi Taylor!
- By Lora Feeley on 09-22-17
By: Jodi Taylor
-
The Constant Rabbit
- A Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An inimitable blend of satire, fantasy, and thriller, The Constant Rabbit is the latest dazzlingly original foray into Jasper Fforde's ever-astonishing creative genius. England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-sized rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphising Event 55 years before.
-
-
great book!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-20
By: Jasper Fforde
-
A Man with One of Those Faces
- By: Caimh McDonnell
- Narrated by: Morgan C. Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident. The second time was deliberate. Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history. Or else they’ll be history.
-
-
Not easily pleased
- By Anna on 08-30-18
By: Caimh McDonnell
-
Medicus
- A Novel of the Roman Empire
- By: Ruth Downie
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his-luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. After a 36-hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. And before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar.
-
-
Took Me by Surprise
- By Lehua of Pacifica on 03-29-08
By: Ruth Downie
-
All the Beauty in the World
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
- By: Patrick Bringley
- Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
-
-
Gallery 771
- By Jonathan Hurst on 06-10-23
By: Patrick Bringley
-
The Employees
- A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century
- By: Olga Ravn
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids.
-
-
I think this was a story?
- By Jordan on 07-02-23
By: Olga Ravn
-
The Stranger Times
- The Stranger Times, Book 1
- By: C. K. McDonnell
- Narrated by: Brendan McDonald
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), The Stranger Times is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable. At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor...well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.
-
-
Animal abuse
- By Meep on 10-26-21
By: C. K. McDonnell