Shades of grey, paperback/jasper fforde

The paperback edition of Jasper Ffordes Orwellian/Douglas Adamsian novel set hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, where the world is an alarmingly different place.

Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.

Full of brilliantly inventive wordplay and quirky fabrications }Mail on Sunday{ Ffordes books are more than an ingenious idea.

They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted.

and are embellished with the rich details of a Dickens or Pratchett }Independent{.