The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly

Basic story... Set in 1939 during the war, The Book of Lost things is a tale about a boy called David who has lost his mother through a terminal illness. He now lives with his father and his new stepmother Rose, as well as his new half brother Georgie. David finds it hard to adjust to his new life in Rose's big old house, he resists all attempts by Rose to befriend him and he resents the intrusion of his new half brother and Rose on his fathers time. The only good thing that David can see about his situation is the old house holds interesting secrets for him. David's new room is filled with old books that appear to whisper to him, and having a great ...  Read the complete review

I am a huge John Connolly fan, I was hooked from the first few pages of his first novel Every Dead Thing, and although this book wasn't part of the Charlie Parker series I wanted to read it. == Synopsis == Set during the war, the story follows David who is a young boy who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, he is compelled to tap items such as the tap an even number of times before and after he uses them. He does this in the hope it will help his mother, who is very ill. Unfortunately for David it doesn't work and his mother dies. Not long after her death his father takes up with another woman, David doesn't like her because ...  Read the complete review

When I first read the blurb for The Book Of Lost Things while browsing for a new book in my local book store I thought I'd found a children's book lost in the adult section. However, I was very wrong, this maybe a fairy tale but it's a tale from a very dark place! The story follows a 12 year old boy called David who is mourning the loss of his mother during the Second World War. David struggles to adapt to his new life, living with his father, his new wife and his step brother. David retreats to his bedroom where he comforts himself with the stories his mother used to read with him of fairy tales and legends. However, these books start to whisper things to ...  Read the complete review

While fairy tales and fables are the influence behind great swathes of modern fiction, there seems to be little recently published work which would be happy to be called such; in many ways, they seem to have gone out of fashion. In The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly both borrows heavily from the extensive realms of fairytaledom and attempts to create something closely related to a traditional fairy tale, fleshed out and expanded into novel form. All the classical elements are here, and many of the original characters - we have a quest for a castle and a king, fearsome beasts and sturdy allies and a liberal sprinkling of Snow Whites, Red Riding Hoods and creations of ...  Read the complete review

I've seen a pattern in the things I read; it's clear I'm hanging on to my inner child, and still can't get enough fairy tales. The Book of Lost Things, however, is defiantly a fairy tale for adults, and is probably the darkest one I have ever read. Like a good many fairy tales, little David's story begins with a death, that of his mother, and the event of his new step mother moving into the house. Having used the books in his house to cope with the loss of his mother and coping with Rose, the step mother, David retreats into a world of fantasy, and this is exactly where he finds himself when he escapes a crashing German aeroplane in his back garden. In a time ...  Read the complete review