With all due respect to Oprah: My favorite things, part 1.

Just in time for the holidays, I thought I would share my thoughts on a couple of new products that have come my way over the last week. For those of you who are "Lost" fans, I'll talk about the Lost Encyclopedia in this entry. For those of you who are past, present, or aspiring followers of Weight Watchers, I'll talk about their new program in a forthcoming entry (probably today or tomorrow). Then, I'm sure I'll think of other things to review over the coming weeks until the big day. Sadly, I do not have the resources of Ms. Winfrey, so I can not finish with spectacular giveaways. Sorry!

So, on to The Lost Encyclopedia: I came across this over the weekend at a B&N, though its actually been out since October. Its an officially sanctioned companion, authored by people who were highly involved in writing the show. In the foreward, the producers explain it as "the iceberg," ie: all of the information that existed under the visible "tip of the iceberg," which was the actual show. At first glance, it looked awesome, and I was tempted to impulse-buy it. I'm glad that I didn't, because the cover price is $45 and it isn't worth that. Amazon has it for only $26, so I added it to one of my Christmas gift orders and it came yesterday.

If you are a serious "Lost" fan, there are some good reasons to buy this book. It is filled with fun photos and quotes, which will make it a good coffee table book for nerds (like me), and it does contain and compile some information that is hard to find elsewhere. For example, there are detailed drawings of the hatches, close-ups of things like Daniel Faraday's diary and the blast-door map from the Swan station, a copy of the DHARMA/Others truce, and a two-page spread showing all of the images from the "Room 23" brainwashing film. It also fills in some (very minor) gaps in some stories. For example, it gives the reasons why Libby was in the mental institution and why Charles Widmore was banished from the Others.

That being said, there are at least two major problems with this book. First and foremost, the editing is extremely sloppy. There are typos everywhere, as well as inconsistencies and mistakes in alphabetization. The content is poorly organized, seems randomly chosen in places, and is definitely not comprehensive with regard to the major characters and locations. It is nothing like the website "Lostpedia," which exhaustively catalogs every fact and relationship from the show. Most of the customers who have reviewed the book on Amazon have commented on the shoddy editing, and many have speculated that a second edition might come out in the future. I certainly hope that happens. If I were the show's producers, I would not want this poorly-edited version to be my definitive final statement.

For me, the other major problem is with the content of the book, paticularly those bits of information that were not on the show. There simply is not enough new information, and what is there is not very satisfying. I did not go into this book expecting big answers to the many unsolved mysteries of the show, as the producers have always said that they intended many things to remain mysterious (they reiterate this in the foreward). Still, I thought I might get some of the facts and backstory that got edited out of the finished episodes. For example, the name of the Man in Black, which got edited out of the final episode, and which Kristen from E!Online revealed to be Samuel. I imagine that the producers must have tons of little tidbits like this, which have little bearing on the overall meaning of the show, but would be immensely satisfying to fans.

When the book does address unanswered questions (example: "Why can Miles and Hurley communicate with the dead?"), the answers are generally non-answers ("They were born with these gifts and don't know why"). At least 50% of the time, the answer is just "fate." So, for example, Desmond was born with an unexplained resistance to electromagnetism and it was fate that he would meet Penny and wind up on the island, where his gift was so important. Another popular answer is "unknown." For example, it is unknown how the woman who raised Jacob and the Man in Black came to the island, and it is unknown what happened to the DeGroots after they founded the DHARMA Initiative. In several of these cases, I think the "unknown" stretches plausibilty: did the writers really have no answer in mind for these questions?    

On the whole, the book just feels sloppy and thrown-together. It makes me totally understand why JK Rowling things it might take her 10 years to sort through all of her backstory and "cutting room" material in order to produce a satisfactory Harry Potter encyclopedia. I wish that the "Lost" team had spent more time producing something worthy of their fan base. Still, if you're a serious "Lost" fan, you'll probably want this book. Just don't spend $45 for it. Better yet, throw it on your holiday list and get somebody else to buy it for you!