Something Rotten is the other book in the series, but I couldn’t find it before taking this photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

She lives in an alternate universe, where the world is still fighting the Crimean War, literature is prized and time travel possible. She has a pet dodo bird, Pickwick, though he was an early model from the infancy of dodo bird cloning, so he can’t fly.

Jasper Fford’s Thursday Next is a Literary Detective, traveling through famous novels to protect them from change.  In some cases (like the infamous Jane Eyre), her failure results in the far better conclusions we’ve always known.

If you have a depth of classic literature knowledge, then each book is chock-full of humorous asides and clever in-jokes.

If, like me, you simply pretend to have knowledge of classic literature at parties, each novel has mystery, romance and a dodo bird to keep you entertained.

I’m not a big hit at parties

But you should still read this series,

Megan

Yesterday they fought over who would sit next to me at a restaurant.

Yesterday they pleaded for me to pick them up and carry them wherever we were walking.

Yesterday I changed their diapers.

Yesterday their mom announced she was pregnant.

As I look at these photos, as I see how they now tower over me, the thought that all-too-soon these memories will be far off yesterdays makes me want to stop time.

At least the Beatles will never leave me,

Megan

You  might have heard of the National Security Agency as the people tapping your phone line.

While that may be true, I know them as the providers of the National Cryptologic Museum, in Ft. Meade, Maryland.

The NSA is probably not tapping your phone line.

But I can’t say for certain, as I don’t know how interesting are your conversations.

There’s a decoding game for children.

But if you ask nicely, and don’t mind the man at the front desk looking at you funky, you too can play along.

It’s my favorite part of the museum.

Aside from the Enigma machine.

An encryption machine used by Nazi Germany, some historians claim our ability to break it’s code hastened the end of the war by two years.

And they have one that you can play with.

They also have normal museum-like exhibits.

In middle-school I made a huge poster board presentation about the Battle of Midway.

I bet it’s still in my dad’s basement.

Educating crickets.

I love when museums make the displays textured and interactive.

If there aren’t helpful cutout woodland creatures, it isn’t a real museum.

Weirdly located at the entrance to the bathrooms, there’s a computer with multiple code-breaking and code-making games.

Did you know hobos used an elaborate code system to convey important knowledge about each town to other passing hobos?

Like who is willing to give out food or who has a dog (or a gun).

As a reward for finishing the game, we all got small puzzles and a pencil.

It might be a small prize, but it’s an honorable one.

(Honorable=pencils, everybody knows that.)

The fake Rosetta Stone gets my excited face.

Even though it didn’t teach me any foreign languages.

Did I mention the museum is free?

Megan