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  • Shades of Grey

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Jasper Fforde
  • Narrated by: John Lee
  • Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (31 ratings)

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Shades of Grey cover art

Shades of Grey

Written by: Jasper Fforde
Narrated by: John Lee
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Publisher's Summary

An astonishing, hotly anticipated new novel from the great literary fantasist and author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser, Jasper Fforde

As long as anyone can remember, society has been ruled by a Colortocracy. From the underground feedpipes that keep the municipal park green to the healing hues viewed to cure illness to a social hierarchy based upon one's limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see.

Young Eddie Russett has no ambition to be anything other than a loyal drone of the Collective. With his better-than-average red perception, he could well marry Constance Oxblood and inherit the string works; he may even have enough red perception to make prefect. For Eddie, life looks colorful. Life looks good. But everything changes when he moves with his father, a respected swatchman, to East Carmine. There, he falls in love with a Grey named Jane who opens his eyes to the painful truth behind his seemingly perfect, rigidly controlled society. Curiosity - a dangerous trait to display in a society that demands total conformity - gets the better of Eddie, who beings to wonder: Why are there not enough spoons to go around? Why is everything - and everyone - barcoded? What happened to all the people who never returned from High Saffron? And why, when you begin to question the world around you, do black-and-white certainties reduce themselves to shades of grey?

Part satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, this is the new world from the creative and comic genius of Jasper Fforde.

©2009 Jasper Fforde (P)2009 Penguin

What listeners say about Shades of Grey

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Excellent book and reading

I can't really review this without spoiling anything. If you enjoy books like say, Fahrenheit 451, this is one worth grabbing.

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Absolutely fantastic

This is my favourite book. I have read it several times. Wanted to download to cheer myself up one day and I know I will be listening to it lots. The narrative was perfection, I loved the way he voiced different characters.

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Curiously Strange Journey

Homorously odd yet curiously relatable world that is hard not to get sucked into. Talented narrator. Individual voices for each character made the story come alive!

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    2 out of 5 stars
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I tried but just can't get into it

Just boring, I am halfway through this incredibly long audiobook, and it still feels like nothing has happened. I am going to give up.

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