I made this list for myself, but I thought that I'd share it in case anyone else happened to be interested. These are all books that are in some way related to Lost - either they deal with similar subject matter, or they have been specifically referenced on the show (and thus might be clues to the mystery.) If anyone has ideas about what else to add, let me know!
Wanna buy any of these? See this topic.
-------------
"LOST" READING LIST
The Bible (Judeo-Christian)
*Eko quotes (and misquotes) the 23rd psalm in "The 23rd Psalm"
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
"Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefectt. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of colorful fellow travelers."
*referenced in the episode "Numbers"
Watership Down - Richard Adams
"The story of a group of bunnies who are forced to abandon their homes to developers, Watership Down is a remarkable tale of exile and survival, of heroism and leadership...the epic novel of a group of adventurers who desert their doomed city, and venture forth against all odds on a quest for a new home and a sturdier future, forging lasting bonds with each other along the way."
*a copy of the book exists on the island in Sawyer's possession
Half Past Human - TJ Bass
"Deep in the Shaft-cities lived three trillion creatures, once human and still calling themseleves homo sapiens. But they were small, bred to size in fact, as they were bred for various kinds of 'work' for even in their almost totally automated culture they had to be kept busy. Like ants. But things were going wrong. The machines wrern't getting it all right any more they were even breaking down sometimes. While Outside, there were Others - who waited..." (Amazon.com)
*features "superpeople" with four toes (TV Guide's Insider), a possible connection to the statue foot seen in "Live Together, Die Alone"
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
"When he is hanged the rope breaks and the main character falls into the water, from which he begins a journey back to his home. During his journey, he starts to feel some strange physiological events that ultimately end with a searing pain in his neck. It turns out that the man never escaped; he imagined the entire thing during the time between being pushed off the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck."
*shown to be one of the books in the hatch in "The Long Con"
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
"If anyone tried to determine the most common rite of passage for preteen girls in North America, a girl's first reading of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret would rank near the top of the list. ... Margaret has a very private relationship with God, and it's only after she moves to New Jersey and hangs out with a new friend that she discovers that it might be weird to talk to God without a priest or a rabbi to mediate. Margaret just wants to fit in! Who is God, and where is He when she needs Him? She begins to look into the cups of her training bra for answers ..." (Amazon review)
*Sawyer is reading this book in "The Whole Truth"
Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
"A little girl traverses a world of nonsense and distorted reality where everything is the opposite of what it should be, and nothing seems to make any rational sense at all."
*A few references have been made on Lost; plus, we know that J.J. Abrams is obsessed with Alice because of all the Alias references
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
"In this searing tale, Seaman Marlow recounts his journey to the dark heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the elusive Mr. Kurtz. Far from civilization as he knows it, he comes to reassess not only his own values, but also those of nature and society. For in this heart of darkness, it is the fearsome face of human savagery that becomes most visible."
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
"On a remote tropical island, an astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy as those stuck on the island in a storm are forced to flee for their lives from the rampaging dinosaurs."
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
"The original castaway narrative and the first novel published in English, the book tells the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades - until the chilling moment when he discovers another footprint in the sand. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God."
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
"... The last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river." (Amazon.com)
*The book Desmond was saving to be the last book he ever read ("Live Together, Die Alone")
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"... is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving "wicked and sentimental" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamozov and his three sons--the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, its social and spritual strivings, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture."
*Locke gives Henry Gale this book to read in "One of Them." This book is one of the ones stored in the hatch.
The Magus - John Fowles
Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by staged deaths, erotic encounters, and terrifying violence, Urfe becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life. A work rich with symbols, conundrums and labrinthine twists of event, The Magus is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, a work that ranks with the best novels of modern times.
Suggested by EW commentator Jeff Jenson as being the inspiration for "Magnus Hanso", a name written on the "hatch map" of "Lockdown."
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
"William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. Led by the level-headed Ralph, the boys attempt to cooperate, but Ralph's antagonist Jack soon lures many of the surviving boys away to join his savage, boar-hunting group. Eventually, Ralph and his allies become hunted by Jack's group. Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct."
*Sawyer mentions the book when he drags Jin in for interrogation regarding the raft
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
"... readers ... find themselves falling into one of two camps supported by critics to this day. Either the story is an excellent example of the type of ghost story that was popular at the end of the nineteenth century or it is a psychoanalytic study of the hallucinations of a madwoman."
*The Dharma Initiative film was hidden behind this book inside the hatch ("Orientation").
The Stand - Stephen King
"The novel presents an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99% percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil. There is much to admire: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath."
*reportedly this work is often discussed by the Lost writers
The Langoliers (from Four Past Midnight) - Stephen King
"After a plane flies through a rip in the fabric of time, only a handful of colorfully characterized passengers remain alive; they must look past their differences and band together to find out why they in particular survived, as well as try to figure out how to get back to the world they left behind."
*a character to be introduced in the future is named after a character from this novella
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
"Meg and Charles Wallace and their new friend Calvin O'Keefe embark on a perilous quest through space to find their father. In doing so, they must travel behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos, one planet at a time. They must rely on their individual and collective strengths, delving deep within themselves to find answers."
*a copy of the book exists on the island in Sawyer's possession
Two Treatises on Government - John Locke
"Locke develops his account from the idea of people living in a state of nature, free from external authority, in families and loose groups. In this state each person has a duty to God not to "harm another in his life, liberty, or goods," and so has a parallel right to defend against such an attack. In order to protect themselves, people agree to unite, and by remaining in a society, one gives one's tacit consent to it. He suggests, however, that "one is always at liberty to incorporate himself into any other community or to begin a new one."
*the character of Locke is named after this philosopher
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - John Locke
"Devoutly believing that we have been put in this world by God, Locke's aim is to discover what kind of things God has fitted us to know, and how we should direct and use our intellect and understanding. He maintains that the mind is a blank slate at birth, and that all our beliefs and ideas are derived from experience. His general conclusion concerning the extent of our knowledge is that God has put within reach of our discovery beliefs sufficient for a comfortable life and has also given us means to acquire this knowledge."
*the character of Locke is named after this philosopher
The Third Policeman - Flan O'Brien
"Flann O'Brien's brilliant comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botche d robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where he is introduced to 'Atomic Theory' and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and the view that the earth is not round but 'sausage-shaped.'"
*taken from the hatch upon leaving by Desmond
Social Contract and Emile - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"His central argument is that the citizens of a society should have sovereignty over themselves and exist in a fraternal organization of liberty and equality. He also posits that man is by nature good, but is corrupted and depraved by society's influence, and that individuals are the victims of civilization."
*the character of Danielle Rousseau is named after this philosopher
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
"Shipwrecked on an enchanted island, the wizard Prospero has mastered the art of magic and liberated several good spirits who had been tormented by the sorceress Sycorax, whose son Caliban has become Prospero's slave. After raising a storm to overtake his treacherous brother Antonio, Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and Caliban are eventually reconciled to the shipwrecked mariners by the sprit Ariel."
Smoke Island - Antony Trew
"An airliner crashes into the sea. The survivors sail away in rescue dinghy, wind up on a deserted island, and have to survive."
Bad Twin - Gary Troup
"Paul Artisan, P.I., is hired to investigate the disappearance of one of a pair of twins, adult scions of a rich but tragedy-prone family. However, he finds that truth itself is up for grabs, as the detective's discoveries seem to challenge everything we think we know about identity, and human nature, and family. As Artisan journeys across the globe to track down the bad twin, he seems to have moved into a mirror-world where friends and enemies have a way of looking very much alike. Troup's long-awaited Bad Twin is a suspenseful novel that touches on many powerful themes, including the consequence of vengeance, the power of redemption, and where to turn when all seems lost." (condensed from book description)
*Gary Troup is a fictional author, a character who died on Oceanic flight 815 and whose script we saw Sawyer reading. (Note also that "Gary Troup" is an anagram for "purgatory" . . . somebody has a sense of humor!)
The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne
"Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne’s masterpiece...it is the enthralling tale of five men and a dog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island of bewildering goings-on and their struggle to survive as they uncover the island’s secret."
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
"Adrift in a dinghy, Edward Prendick, the single survivor from the good ship Lady Vain, is rescued by a vessel carrying an unusual cargo—a menagerie of savage animals. Nursed to recovery by their keeper Montgomery, who gives him dark medicine that tastes of blood, Prendick soon finds himself stranded upon an uncharted island in the Pacific with his rescuer and the beasts. There, he meets the sinister Dr. Moreau—a brilliant scientist whose notorious experiments in vivisection have caused him to abandon the civilized world. It soon becomes clear that he has continued to develop these experiments with truly horrific results."
The Swiss Family Robinson - Johann Wyss
"One family emerges alive from a terrible storm at sea: the Robinsons -- a Swiss pastor, his wife, and four sons. The novel portrays their struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. There each boy must learn to control his own nature as their adventures lead to amazing discoveries, danger, and tantalizing surprises, including a puzzling message tied to an albatross's leg. But it is the authenticity of the boys' behavior, the ingenuity of the family, and the natural wonders of this exotic land that have made The Swiss Family Robinson one of the world's best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival."
And this isn't really that relevant, but it kind of reminded me of Lost in that everything on the island that appears to be random and unconnected really isn't.
From Stanza VI of "Queen Mab" by Percy Bysshe Shelley-
"Heaven's lightnings scorched the uprooted oceanfords,
Whilst, to the eye of shipwrecked mariner,
Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
All seems unlinked contingency and chance:
No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act."
Wanna buy any of these? See this topic.
-------------
"LOST" READING LIST
The Bible (Judeo-Christian)
*Eko quotes (and misquotes) the 23rd psalm in "The 23rd Psalm"
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
"Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefectt. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of colorful fellow travelers."
*referenced in the episode "Numbers"
Watership Down - Richard Adams
"The story of a group of bunnies who are forced to abandon their homes to developers, Watership Down is a remarkable tale of exile and survival, of heroism and leadership...the epic novel of a group of adventurers who desert their doomed city, and venture forth against all odds on a quest for a new home and a sturdier future, forging lasting bonds with each other along the way."
*a copy of the book exists on the island in Sawyer's possession
Half Past Human - TJ Bass
"Deep in the Shaft-cities lived three trillion creatures, once human and still calling themseleves homo sapiens. But they were small, bred to size in fact, as they were bred for various kinds of 'work' for even in their almost totally automated culture they had to be kept busy. Like ants. But things were going wrong. The machines wrern't getting it all right any more they were even breaking down sometimes. While Outside, there were Others - who waited..." (Amazon.com)
*features "superpeople" with four toes (TV Guide's Insider), a possible connection to the statue foot seen in "Live Together, Die Alone"
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
"When he is hanged the rope breaks and the main character falls into the water, from which he begins a journey back to his home. During his journey, he starts to feel some strange physiological events that ultimately end with a searing pain in his neck. It turns out that the man never escaped; he imagined the entire thing during the time between being pushed off the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck."
*shown to be one of the books in the hatch in "The Long Con"
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
"If anyone tried to determine the most common rite of passage for preteen girls in North America, a girl's first reading of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret would rank near the top of the list. ... Margaret has a very private relationship with God, and it's only after she moves to New Jersey and hangs out with a new friend that she discovers that it might be weird to talk to God without a priest or a rabbi to mediate. Margaret just wants to fit in! Who is God, and where is He when she needs Him? She begins to look into the cups of her training bra for answers ..." (Amazon review)
*Sawyer is reading this book in "The Whole Truth"
Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
"A little girl traverses a world of nonsense and distorted reality where everything is the opposite of what it should be, and nothing seems to make any rational sense at all."
*A few references have been made on Lost; plus, we know that J.J. Abrams is obsessed with Alice because of all the Alias references
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
"In this searing tale, Seaman Marlow recounts his journey to the dark heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the elusive Mr. Kurtz. Far from civilization as he knows it, he comes to reassess not only his own values, but also those of nature and society. For in this heart of darkness, it is the fearsome face of human savagery that becomes most visible."
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
"On a remote tropical island, an astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy as those stuck on the island in a storm are forced to flee for their lives from the rampaging dinosaurs."
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
"The original castaway narrative and the first novel published in English, the book tells the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades - until the chilling moment when he discovers another footprint in the sand. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God."
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
"... The last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river." (Amazon.com)
*The book Desmond was saving to be the last book he ever read ("Live Together, Die Alone")
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"... is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving "wicked and sentimental" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamozov and his three sons--the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, its social and spritual strivings, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture."
*Locke gives Henry Gale this book to read in "One of Them." This book is one of the ones stored in the hatch.
The Magus - John Fowles
Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, The Magus is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by staged deaths, erotic encounters, and terrifying violence, Urfe becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life. A work rich with symbols, conundrums and labrinthine twists of event, The Magus is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, a work that ranks with the best novels of modern times.
Suggested by EW commentator Jeff Jenson as being the inspiration for "Magnus Hanso", a name written on the "hatch map" of "Lockdown."
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
"William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. Led by the level-headed Ralph, the boys attempt to cooperate, but Ralph's antagonist Jack soon lures many of the surviving boys away to join his savage, boar-hunting group. Eventually, Ralph and his allies become hunted by Jack's group. Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct."
*Sawyer mentions the book when he drags Jin in for interrogation regarding the raft
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
"... readers ... find themselves falling into one of two camps supported by critics to this day. Either the story is an excellent example of the type of ghost story that was popular at the end of the nineteenth century or it is a psychoanalytic study of the hallucinations of a madwoman."
*The Dharma Initiative film was hidden behind this book inside the hatch ("Orientation").
The Stand - Stephen King
"The novel presents an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99% percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil. There is much to admire: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath."
*reportedly this work is often discussed by the Lost writers
The Langoliers (from Four Past Midnight) - Stephen King
"After a plane flies through a rip in the fabric of time, only a handful of colorfully characterized passengers remain alive; they must look past their differences and band together to find out why they in particular survived, as well as try to figure out how to get back to the world they left behind."
*a character to be introduced in the future is named after a character from this novella
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
"Meg and Charles Wallace and their new friend Calvin O'Keefe embark on a perilous quest through space to find their father. In doing so, they must travel behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos, one planet at a time. They must rely on their individual and collective strengths, delving deep within themselves to find answers."
*a copy of the book exists on the island in Sawyer's possession
Two Treatises on Government - John Locke
"Locke develops his account from the idea of people living in a state of nature, free from external authority, in families and loose groups. In this state each person has a duty to God not to "harm another in his life, liberty, or goods," and so has a parallel right to defend against such an attack. In order to protect themselves, people agree to unite, and by remaining in a society, one gives one's tacit consent to it. He suggests, however, that "one is always at liberty to incorporate himself into any other community or to begin a new one."
*the character of Locke is named after this philosopher
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - John Locke
"Devoutly believing that we have been put in this world by God, Locke's aim is to discover what kind of things God has fitted us to know, and how we should direct and use our intellect and understanding. He maintains that the mind is a blank slate at birth, and that all our beliefs and ideas are derived from experience. His general conclusion concerning the extent of our knowledge is that God has put within reach of our discovery beliefs sufficient for a comfortable life and has also given us means to acquire this knowledge."
*the character of Locke is named after this philosopher
The Third Policeman - Flan O'Brien
"Flann O'Brien's brilliant comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botche d robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where he is introduced to 'Atomic Theory' and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and the view that the earth is not round but 'sausage-shaped.'"
*taken from the hatch upon leaving by Desmond
Social Contract and Emile - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"His central argument is that the citizens of a society should have sovereignty over themselves and exist in a fraternal organization of liberty and equality. He also posits that man is by nature good, but is corrupted and depraved by society's influence, and that individuals are the victims of civilization."
*the character of Danielle Rousseau is named after this philosopher
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
"Shipwrecked on an enchanted island, the wizard Prospero has mastered the art of magic and liberated several good spirits who had been tormented by the sorceress Sycorax, whose son Caliban has become Prospero's slave. After raising a storm to overtake his treacherous brother Antonio, Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and Caliban are eventually reconciled to the shipwrecked mariners by the sprit Ariel."
Smoke Island - Antony Trew
"An airliner crashes into the sea. The survivors sail away in rescue dinghy, wind up on a deserted island, and have to survive."
Bad Twin - Gary Troup
"Paul Artisan, P.I., is hired to investigate the disappearance of one of a pair of twins, adult scions of a rich but tragedy-prone family. However, he finds that truth itself is up for grabs, as the detective's discoveries seem to challenge everything we think we know about identity, and human nature, and family. As Artisan journeys across the globe to track down the bad twin, he seems to have moved into a mirror-world where friends and enemies have a way of looking very much alike. Troup's long-awaited Bad Twin is a suspenseful novel that touches on many powerful themes, including the consequence of vengeance, the power of redemption, and where to turn when all seems lost." (condensed from book description)
*Gary Troup is a fictional author, a character who died on Oceanic flight 815 and whose script we saw Sawyer reading. (Note also that "Gary Troup" is an anagram for "purgatory" . . . somebody has a sense of humor!
)The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne
"Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne’s masterpiece...it is the enthralling tale of five men and a dog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island of bewildering goings-on and their struggle to survive as they uncover the island’s secret."
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
"Adrift in a dinghy, Edward Prendick, the single survivor from the good ship Lady Vain, is rescued by a vessel carrying an unusual cargo—a menagerie of savage animals. Nursed to recovery by their keeper Montgomery, who gives him dark medicine that tastes of blood, Prendick soon finds himself stranded upon an uncharted island in the Pacific with his rescuer and the beasts. There, he meets the sinister Dr. Moreau—a brilliant scientist whose notorious experiments in vivisection have caused him to abandon the civilized world. It soon becomes clear that he has continued to develop these experiments with truly horrific results."
The Swiss Family Robinson - Johann Wyss
"One family emerges alive from a terrible storm at sea: the Robinsons -- a Swiss pastor, his wife, and four sons. The novel portrays their struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. There each boy must learn to control his own nature as their adventures lead to amazing discoveries, danger, and tantalizing surprises, including a puzzling message tied to an albatross's leg. But it is the authenticity of the boys' behavior, the ingenuity of the family, and the natural wonders of this exotic land that have made The Swiss Family Robinson one of the world's best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival."
And this isn't really that relevant, but it kind of reminded me of Lost in that everything on the island that appears to be random and unconnected really isn't.
From Stanza VI of "Queen Mab" by Percy Bysshe Shelley-
"Heaven's lightnings scorched the uprooted oceanfords,
Whilst, to the eye of shipwrecked mariner,
Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
All seems unlinked contingency and chance:
No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act."
