I’ve posted this request before a year or two ago and was recommended Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay and it quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. So I’m back in that mood and hoping to find another great read!
Lost is my favorite TV show and feels like something made just for me for how specifically it ticks so many boxes of characters and tropes I love. So really, any recommendations that fit any aspect of the show, I will probably enjoy.
For a list of specifically what appeals to me most (I don’t expect anything to have all of these or even multiple in the same book):
– a puzzle box story
– mysterious and unexplained phenomena in the environment
– an overall tense atmosphere where you don’t really know who to trust or what’s going on
– charismatic villains like Ben Linus
– underdog heroes like Desmond Hume.
– eccentric scientists/academics like Daniel Faraday
– sci fi and fantasy blended together
– >!old gods!<
– retro-future
For anyone perusing this thread for recs, I did just finish the graphic novel The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion IV and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for Lost vibes.
Edit to add more recommendations of books I’ve read like Lost in some regard:
– Pines by Blake Crouch (also Dark Matter by the same author)
– Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
– Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
– S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst
– Day of the Triffids by John Wyndam
– Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
– Lord of the Flies by William Golding
– Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells
Short stories: The Most Dangerous Game, Diamond as Big as the Ritz
Graphic Novels: The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, Black Hammer, The Woods (also by James Tynion)
by brittanydiesattheend
5 Comments
How about the Wayward Pines books, by Blake Crouch. They touch on at least some of your points.
Also: Have you read Gaiman’s American Gods? I don’t think of it as being similar to LOST, but it does hit on a number of your criteria in its own way.
LOST-related but not really what you’re looking for:
1. Have you read Sawyer’s beach reading novels? Just about all of them bore some significance to the show.
2. Were you aware that during the run of the show, an in-universe novel was written and released? It wasn’t that great, but it was fun scouring it for possible clues and hints. From Wikipedia:
> Additionally, Hyperion published a metafictional book titled Bad Twin (ISBN 1-4013-0276-9), written by Laurence Shames, and credited to fictitious author “Gary Troup”, who ABC’s marketing department claimed was a passenger on Oceanic Flight 815.
The marketing department kind of took on a life of its own with LOST and some of the things they did wound up having very little to do with the actual show (and weren’t necessarily run past the showrunners – the network basically started writing its own fan fiction; this novel being one example.)
{{Piranesi by Susanna Clarke}}
As someone who also has Lost as one of their favourite shows you have to try {{Wool by Hugh Howey}}.
You could also try the tv adaptation **SILO** which is solid. But honestly the books are better.
✔️ a puzzle box story
✔️ mysterious and unexplained phenomena in the environment
✔️ an overall tense atmosphere where you don’t really know who to trust or what’s going on
✔️ charismatic villains like Ben Linus
✔️ underdog heroes like Desmond Hume.
✔️ eccentric scientists/academics like Daniel Faraday
❌ sci-fi and fantasy blended together
❌ ***Spoiler***
✔️ retro-future
Doesn’t hit all the bullet points, but you may like Stranded by Sarah Goodwin.
The invention of morel by Adolfo casares.
I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman.
Semiosis by Sue Burke
Death and the penguin by andrey kurkov.