The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

My colleague and partner in crime posted some of her favorite books this evening, including The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly.  Since this is one of my all-time favorite books, too, I thought I should elaborate.

A short synopsis, first: David, a young boy growing up in London during WWII, loses his mother and turns to books of fairy tales and mythology for solace.  He soon begins hearing the books whispering to him and catches glimpses of things which don’t belong in his world.  He is eventually transported to a world woven from these stories – but never in quite the way you would expect.

On the surface, this book could be unremarkable.  It’s been done before, many times, this coming of age tale in a fantasy world.  The Book of Lost Things, however, has enough unique and imaginative characters and plot twists to make revisiting the form more than worthwhile.  It is all around well-conceived, well-structured, and well-written.  My kind of book!

In the end, all you really need to know about the book is this: I made the mistake of starting to read it during lunch one day.  My copy still has a large stain on page 6, by which point I was so engrossed that I missed my mouth and dropped a piece of pineapple on it.  If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, drop what you are doing (or eating) and get yourself a copy.  You can thank me later.