Adventures in the Book Trade by Mrs O Nakajima

Osaka: thanks to Time Out

Title: Adventures in the Book Trade

Author: Mrs O Nakajima 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde 

Mrs Nakajima is a natural book jumper, apparently born with the mysterious ability to read herself into a book without any training: behind the scenes - not in the text so a reader like you or me would notice her springing up into a book we’d read before. She lives in Osaka, and makes a good a living taking tourists on discreet visits into books such as Jane Eyre. What the tourists think about it we don’t find out. Perhaps they think they are visiting an extremely fancy role play theme park. It isn’t generally known that you can travel into fiction, and most people who know it can be done need instructions. Mrs Nakajima just does it.

When Thursday Next takes up residence inside Jane Eyre (in persuit of Acheron Hades), the Thornfield  staff discover she is from the real world and she is very puzzled when someone asks if she’s from Osaka.

Later Mrs Nakajima moves to Thornfield, the home of Mr Rochester, and takes over as housekeeper. And possibly visitor coordinator.

Now, what Mrs Nakajima finds to say in her book, who can really say. You wouldn’t think she should be advertising her unusual skill. But there’s a short extract from Adventures in the Book Trade which describes how she first reads herself into a book, at school. She starts to read a passage from Winnie-the-Pooh and suddenly finds herself in the Hundred Acre Wood, where it’s raining. What her teacher or her classmates thought about her suddenly being wet we don’t find out. Apparently she taught Christopher Robin to read and write. 

Thanks to MATCHA