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The Book of Lost Things
 
 
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The Book of Lost Things (Paperback)

by John Connolly (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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The Book of Lost Things + Nocturnes + Bad Men
Price For All Three: £17.92

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Product details

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (5 April 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340899484
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340899489
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 10,055 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #4 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > C > Connolly, John

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Product Description

Review

'The book's epic villainy, mournful tone and tested morality is the essence of Connolly.  Worst of all is the Crooked Man, who ranks with the Travelling Man, the Collector and even Mr Pudd among Connolly's most memorable villains. 'THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS is peculiar and perverse and humane, with an incredibly lyrical finale . . . The novel should earn the author new readers.'

(The Irish Times )

'Brilliantly creepy coming of age novel'

(Mirror )

‘A powerful, powerful writer. I got a very real chill down my spine. This is an amazing book.’

(Jeffery Deaver )

 ‘Charming, disturbing and outrageously imaginative. A tremendously exciting change of pace.’

(Lawrence Jackson, Producer of BBC Radio 4’s adaptations of John Connolly’s short stories )

'The book is beautifully written ... It is obviously the product of someone with a very powerful imagination'

(Newbooks Magazine )

'John Connolly has a cult following for his crime novel and can clearly plot twists and turns. He has applied that talent to his own life by producing a very different book... a highly original novel using stories that we all know. But think twice before reading his version of Hansel and Gretel to your kids'

(Times )


Product Description

'Once upon a time, there was a boy who lost his mother . . .' As twelve-year-old David takes refuge from his grief in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother, he finds the real world and the fantasy world begin to blend. That is when bad things start to happen. That is when the Crooked Man comes. And David is violently propelled into a land populated by heroes, wolves and monsters, his quest to find the legendary Book of Lost Things.
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81% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

82 Reviews
5 star:
 (43)
4 star:
 (20)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
 (7)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (82 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars everything the brothers grimm film wasn't, 15 Sep 2006
This review is from: The Book of Lost Things (Hardcover)
Once again this author has hit the mark of great story telling. This is a story of a young boy(David) who loses his mother and has to adjust to life without her. His father eventually re-marries and they are soon joined by a new half brother. David, feeling left out retreats into a world of books and stories.
When they all move into his stepmothers house, things become rather strange.
David finds a hole in the garden wall which transports him to a magical fairy tale like land of werewolves,trolls and the evil crooked man.

I don't want to divulge too much of the plot, so I'll just say that this story is a fantastic mix of fairy tale and horror. Much like the Brothers Grimm film, this story contains a collection of the famous fairy tales all coming together in the fast paced adventure. That is the only similarity as 'The Book of Lost Things'was a far supperior story.
Not knowing the premise of this book, I thought it would be another action/thriller type book like his others. I have enjoyed all of J.C.'s books, but this one has been the most amazing story yet. It may have been very different to the Charlie Parker books, but it still shared the same dark tone that all his books follow.
This was one of those books I had a hard time putting down.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, 30 April 2007
By OEJ (England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)      
In this stand-alone novel Connolly has adapted or taken extracts from a number of classical fairy tales to create one story, which in common with The Chronicles of Narnia takes place in Second World War England and involves a secret portal to a magical mystery land with battles of its own being fought and involving half-human, half-animal hybrids. While on the one hand it's tempting to suggest that this is purely an indulgence on the author's part, there's no denying that it's well written and the imagery and atmosphere he creates - so often a Connolly strength - is probably his best to date because he has given himself free rein to fantasise as much as he wants to.

In my own paperback copy, an unusual supplement to an already unusual book includes an `interview' with Connolly in which he is asked such questions as why he wrote the tale at all. I won't spoil things here, but I do find it curious that the novelist finds a need to justify the writing of a story and to publish those reasons in the book itself. Not that it matters, it takes a little while adjusting to the nature of the story after the very different style of the Charlie `Bird' Parker series but once the reader becomes familiar with it, it makes for entertaining reading. Despite its fairy-tale underpinnings, however, this is not a story for young children; there is no bad language at any time but some of the violence, while pretty tame compared to traditional Connolly fare, would make for an uncomfortable bedtime story for your seven-year-old daughter! But at least Connolly has eradicated the gun from one of his novels as a means of killing; he has always delved into the supernatural world even when writing modern day crime fiction, but in the past even some of the ghosts he created killed with pistols or rifles, which I found at odds with the theme. Not in this book, though. Central character David has nothing more sophisticated than a sword at his side and this is perfectly in keeping with the strange world he inhabits for much of this tale.

Another frequent idiosyncrasy throughout several of Connolly's novels is to give the bad guy a title of some kind, in TBOLT he's The Crooked Man who is very loosely adapted from the Brothers Grimm's dwarf creation Rumpelstiltskin. And with central character David having a conversation with a woman who turns out to be dead, we are reminded once again that there are more similarities to the Bird series than initially meets the eye. Still left-field by most reckonings, and certainly not crime fiction, it's an adult fairy tale that will satisfy existing Connolly fans and for those of you lucky enough not to know, there's a wonderful series of novels by the same author that you really should try if you want a credible mixture of contemporary fiction and the supernatural.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fantasy Adventure, 14 Feb 2007
By H. Ashford "hashford" (Sheffield, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Book of Lost Things (Hardcover)
This is a lovely book. It takes teenager David on an adventure through a fantasy world and a journey along the path from childhood to adulthood. In some ways it reads like a reworking of Wizard of Oz, except that the different aspects of David's personality are integrated in one person (unlike Dorothy's, which appear externally - in the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man). All the same, David has to develop and learn to use cunning/brains (when he solves the riddle of the two bridges), strength and courage (when he defeats the monster in the village), and, hardest of all, love for his step family, before he can defeat his enemies and return home. There are references to various fairy tales and nursery rhymes - some of them twisted and quite dark.

I've marked it down to 4 stars because, for me at least, it reads like teen fiction - it's basically a thriller given a fantasy setting and a little bit of a message - and this book doesn't match up to the best of fantasy fiction (eg the Narnia books, or Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy). The material is rich enough to carry so much more. For instance we could have been asked to question (just a little) our notions of right and wrong - ie is it always "good" to kill our enemies? Without wanting to give the end away, it would have been nice to have been left with a question mark over whether the ending was really "morally right".
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Pure Escapism for Adults
A Fairy Tale for adults with allegories in abundance. Find yourself reacquainted with Wolves, Trolls, Knights and Mythical Harpies and Centaurs. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Book Scout

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful tale!
What a glorious book! I loved the build up beginning when Stephen loses his mother, begins to withdraw and becomes more and more engrossed in the books which surround him. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Helena

5.0 out of 5 stars The Loup, the Harpies and the Crooked Man
John is an unhappy child. His mother has died despite all the rituals he faithfully completed to prevent it happening and to make things worse his father has another wife lined... Read more
Published 1 month ago by E. Shaw

5.0 out of 5 stars Another hit
A Fabulous journey written about young David , His father , mother and Step mother and a new arrival to the family,

During the war Davids Mother dies and then David... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Robert Davis

4.0 out of 5 stars A dark twist on childrens stories!
What is quite clear upon reading this book, is that Mr J Connolly had some nightmares about these stories as a child. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Amaya

5.0 out of 5 stars As usual john connolly has exceeded himself
As usual john connolly has exceeded himself with the book of lost things, he is an author of the 21st century, he grips you from start to finish with his excellent writting. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mrs. A. Oxley

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun
This book was fun. I liked the author's take on the fairytales I read as a child. They become very dark, and in some places very funny. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Kirsty B

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down
I wasn't really sure what to expect from John Connolly's "Book of Lost Things". What little information I had read about the title suggested that it was something of a child's... Read more
Published 8 months ago by xenofan

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!
This is a remarkable story which explores the many stepping stones that one child must encounter. Jealousy, hatred, love, loss and courage. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Lesley-anne Murray

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVED IT!
This has to be the best book I have read in a long time. An daring read which was impossible to put down. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Jala sufian

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