The Buzz...About Books

The final episode of the TV series Lost [2004-2010] aired last week. Some people I know never watched this complicated drama and even I who was a devoted fan was left wondering if the End was really the End?

There may be answers to some remaining questions hidden in the many books that characters on the show were seen reading, discussing or even referred to by their own names.  In the list below the titles alone give us a clue to what's going on in many of the episodes.

The biggest reader on the show is the character Sawyer, the complex conman. He seems an unlikely reader but is seen reading most often.  

Sawyer’s List:

• Watership Down by Richard Adams [Sawyers critique: "Hell of a book. It's about bunnies!"]
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• A Wrinkle in Time by Marion L’Engle
• Lancelot by Walker Percy
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Bad Twin (a manuscript found on the Island?) by Gary Troup
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
• The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok

Jack, the good doctor, who is the first and last character we see in the series comments early on, "We either live together…. or die alone.”  This made me wonder if the script writers had read:  

• Every man dies alone by Hans Fallada

The web contains many sites and blogs referring to the books mentioned on the show but few have annotated the list as well as the wiki Books from the TV Show Lost.  

Post your comments here or go to the Book Buzz discussion forum.  

Jane, Guest Book Buzz Host