Lost, The
Lost, The book cover

Lost, The

Paperback – Illustrated, November 14, 2014

by
Price
$9.95
Format
Paperback
Pages
530
Publisher
Harper Perennial
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0060542993
Dimensions
5.25 x 1.31 x 8 inches
Weight
14.6 ounces

Description

""The Lost" is a sensitively written book that constantly asks itself the most difficult questions about history and memory."--BookForum"A stirring detective work, "The Lost" is ... deepened by reflections on the inescapable part that chance plays in history."--J. M. Coetzee"Mendelsohn, a classicist, creates a stunning "Odyssey" here, an epic world-wandering."--Garry Wills"A beautiful book, beautifully written."--Michael Chabon"A grand book, an ambitious undertaking fully realized."--The Forward"A magnificent and deeply wise book. . . . Mesmerizing. . . . Mendelsohn's accomplishment is enormous."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review"A stirring detective work, The Lost is ... deepened by reflections on the inescapable part that chance plays in history."--J. M. Coetzee"A stunning achievement. . . . Extraordinary."--Rebecca Goldstein, The New York Observer"A stunning memoir. . . . As suspenseful as a detective thriller, and as difficult to put down."--Francine Prose, O, The Oprah Magazine"An excellent memoir. . . . The Lost . . . brings to life the struggle of an entire generation."--People (four stars)"Daniel Mendelsohn has written a powerfully moving work of a "lost" family past. . . . A remarkable achievement."--Joyce Carol Oates"Epic and personal, meditative and suspenseful, tragic and at times hilarious, The Lost is a wonderful book."--Jonathan Safran Foer"Hugely ambitious yet intensely engaging. . . . Absorbing, novelistic. . . . Thought-provoking and original."--Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Times Book Review (front cover)"Mendelsohn, a classicist, creates a stunning Odyssey here, an epic world-wandering."--Garry Wills"Stunning. . . . A singular achievement, a work of major significance and pummeling impact."--Samuel G. Freedman, The Chicago Tribune"The Lost is a sensitively written book that constantly asks itself the most difficult questions about history and memory."--BookForum"The Lost is the most gripping, the most amazing true story I have read in years."--Charles Simic, The New York Review of BooksA beautiful book, beautifully written. --Michael ChabonA grand book, an ambitious undertaking fully realized. --The ForwardA magnificent and deeply wise book. . . . Mesmerizing. . . . Mendelsohn s accomplishment is enormous. --The Los Angeles Times Book ReviewA stirring detective work, The Lost is deepened by reflections on the inescapable part that chance plays in history. --J. M. CoetzeeA stunning achievement. . . . Extraordinary. --Rebecca Goldstein, The New York ObserverA stunning memoir. . . . As suspenseful as a detective thriller, and as difficult to put down. --Francine Prose, O, The Oprah MagazineAn excellent memoir. . . . The Lost . . . brings to life the struggle of an entire generation. --People (four stars)Daniel Mendelsohn has written a powerfully moving work of a lost family past. . . . A remarkable achievement. --Joyce Carol OatesEpic and personal, meditative and suspenseful, tragic and at times hilarious, The Lost is a wonderful book. --Jonathan Safran FoerHugely ambitious yet intensely engaging. . . . Absorbing, novelistic. . . . Thought-provoking and original. --Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Times Book Review (front cover)Mendelsohn, a classicist, creates a stunning Odyssey here, an epic world-wandering. --Garry WillsStunning. . . . A singular achievement, a work of major significance and pummeling impact. --Samuel G. Freedman, The Chicago TribuneThe Lost is a sensitively written book that constantly asks itself the most difficult questions about history and memory. --BookForumThe Lost is the most gripping, the most amazing true story I have read in years. --Charles Simic, The New York Review of Books"A beautiful book, beautifully written." -- Michael Chabon"A stirring detective work, The Lost is . deepened by reflections on the inescapable part that chance plays in history." -- J. M. Coetzee"A stunning achievement. . . . Extraordinary." -- Rebecca Goldstein, The New York Observer

Features & Highlights

  • In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic--part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work--that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(234)
★★★★
25%
(195)
★★★
15%
(117)
★★
7%
(55)
★
23%
(180)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Paperback Edition Typeface Tiresome to Read

This review does not address the content of The Lost, it only addresses the typeface used in the paperback edition. This is the first time ever that I am returning a book because of the typeface. It is very small but it is also a bit fussy. It might be Times New Roman, but I am not sure. I have perfect near vision. But I am conscious of struggling to read the page, which means I can't get lost in the book. I am ordering the hardcover hoping that the typeface is better for me.

ADDENDUM JULY 7,2010. If you want this book, order the hard copy which was very readable. I do not know what the electronic version is like. I think the readability of the type is an important aspect of a book. I appreciate all of the "not helpful" comments I am getting. When I look at a product I may want to buy, I look at the one star reviews first to see if there is a significant problem. If someone told me the typeface was unreadable I would find another printing. I figure that all of the "not helpful" votes will just draw more amazon users to this review and maybe the publisher will put out a better paperback copy.
40 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Hire An Editor

I bought this book as I started my business trip to China, hoping to enjoy a good book on the plane. I was really disappointed by the following:

1. The pictures, though haunting and beautiful are not captioned. It would have been much better putting them in a section with captions. The least they could have done would have been to put them in the proper context.

2. There is a great story somewhere in this book, but it got lost in the details and poor writing. It was very difficult to follow the story, even in circular Russian-doll style the author favors. It seemed to me that he just kept repeating the same thing in every chapter, adding just a bit to it.

I think they should re-edit the book and publish again. This edition does not do justice to the story.
19 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

The Lost

This is a good book but the effort to write this book and the passion, is greater. This is an indepth personal journey and you are in the experience, at times this is tedious but it is as well an enriching experience and engaging. There are appealing charachter stories but also descriptions of human torture and brutality so I say I think some sensitivity should be demonstrated in marketing books about the Holocaust, the material is true but it is brutal and should not be associated with words like "hilarious" on the back cover. I am referring to the review quote by Jonathan Safran Foer who describes the book as being "at times hilarious". I did not come across anything in the book that I would define as hilarious.
5 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

The Lost almost lost me

I'm a huge Daniel Mendelsohn fan. I religiously read his New York Review Book essays with great delight and satisfaction. I had high hopes when I picked up "The Lost," particularly since it won so many awards and appeared to take a different, more personal approach to the horrific story of the Holocaust. I found the first couple hundred pages absorbing, sad, horrific and conscious altering. I thought about scenes of the book even when I was doing other things.

I humored his attempt to create a biblical context for the book; italized sections that reference the Old Testament. I found them unreadable but I understood what he was doing and didn't hold that against him. However, much of what we learn about the Jagers, the part of the family that stayed in Bolechow, a small Ukrainian town where nearly all the jews were massacred, comes in those first couple hundred pages. The remainder of the book is mostly about people who might have some piece of information about the Jagers but mostly don't. Mr. Mendelsohn spends far too much time and the reader's patience on these endless visits which are only slightly interesting and which don't deepen our understanding of the plight of Jagers and didn't deepen my understanding of the Holocaust.

Is this a book worth reading? Yes. Finally, the sincerity, the passion and energy with which he tells this story makes it worth the often tedious passages. And the book regains its power in the last forty or so pages. So read the book but don't be afraid to skim!
3 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Found in The Lost

I was richly rewarded by reading this tome through to the end. I was moved by Mendelsohn's comment " …so much you never notice, until suddenly, for whatever reason--you happen to look like someone long dead; you decide, suddenly, that it's important to let your children know where they came from--you need the information that people you once knew always had to give you, if only you'd asked." Reading The Lost should inspire others to go on the same genealogical road of discovery.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Pyramids of flesh

Daniel Mendelsohn has brought to fruition this incredible story of his odyssey to find details - decades after the fact - surrounding the last years of six members of his grandfather's family in the hell that was the Holocaust. Yes, the writing does tend to ramble on somewhat but his sheer passion of getting to the truth behind the sad ending of this little family in the Ukrainian town of Bolechow still manages to retain one's attention to the very end. Out of a Jewish population of 6000 only a lucky 46 survived the Nazi actions to annihilate them. Ever present is the knowledge that Bolechow is just a microscopic representation of the whole Holocaust tragedy. Even more horrifying is that the heinous actions that took place here - as they did in countless other villages and towns throughout occupied Europe - did so without the discretion of gas chambers masquerading as showers. On saying goodbye to a survivor Mendelsohn asks the question 'if there was just one thing that you would like me to tell the readers' about Bolechow what would it be?". He answers 'there were the Egyptians with their pyramids. There were the Incas of Peru and there was the Jews of Bolechow." In spotlighted the demise of his family and the Jews of a single town Mendelsohn has done both his culture and his family proud. Indeed we will remember them.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Very good book.

Not normally the type of book I'd go for. I took it from the library for a few simple reasons :it was big, and I thought that it has been a while since I read a book of that size and also I had just read Victor Frankl's:A man's search for meaning. So I was on the theme of the Jews and WWII anyway. It was perched on the shelf and the cover invited me with it's old photographs. I was not expecting it to be a book that immediately would draw me in, I was not expecting it to be a book that I could not put a way, and it wasn't. I was expecting it to give me some heart wrenching stories which would make me ask Why? And How is it possible that people can act this way, and give me some historical information/ teach me something, which it did. It was about what I expected.I do think that gruesome and sad as wars and what people did are, these stories are very important, we should not forget, they should not be swept under a carpet.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A stunning book- absolutely wonderful

This is a mesmerizing and powerful book, certainly one of the best books I've read in quite a long time. This is the first book in recent memory that's prompted me to email all my friends saying, "Read this!"

The Lost tells the true story of the author's search to discover what happened to his great-uncle's family in WWII. His relatives can say only that Schmiel, his wife Ester and their four daughters were killed by the Nazis in their small Polish town. Daniel Mendelsohn becomes obsessed with knowing more than that; he needs to have a deeper knowledge of how and when these family members died. This desire takes him from Poland to Israel, Australia and Sweden to interview Holocaust survivors who knew his family and can offer up clues as to how they lived their final years, days, moments.

This a deeply personal and emotional book. I found it very moving and impossible to stop thinking about once I'd finished the book. The account of how Schmiel and his family struggled to survive in Bolechow won't soon leave you.

Daniel Mendelsohn's book is a masterpiece, combining the most intimate family memories with a larger theoretical and theological conversation. Brilliant.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

the Lost

Simply the best book on the Holocaust anywhere. An amazing personal story involving unforgettable characters. I have read it -- no exaggeration -- 5 or 6 times, and I will read it again. Nothing like it.
1 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

It may be worth your energy and time to reaed this book

This again is another story about the holocaust. It is fairly well written, and keeps one's interest. The subject matter is the same as most other holocaust stories, and nothing new is discovered or unearthed.
1 people found this helpful

Related Books