Finding Lost: The Unofficial Guide.

Robin Chamberlain is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University.

Nikki Stafford’s Finding Lost: The Unofficial Guide is a goldmine for fans of the hit television show Lost. Lost is renowned for its complexity and mysteriousness, and Stafford’s guide helps fans navigate and interpret its world. Stafford’s attention to detail is extraordinary, as her detailed episode summaries, commentaries, and analyses show. The book covers the first two seasons, and is organized by episode.

Each episode guide contains a summary, an analysis, and a section on points of interest. These include “Highlight,” “Did You Notice?” (details that might seem minor but become relevant to later episodes), “Interesting Facts,” “Nitpick,” “Oops” (errors, or what seem to be errors, like a character having less facial hair in one shot than in the one immediately after it), “4 8 15 16 23 43” (the numbers that recur in the show), “It’s Just a Flesh Wound” (a list of the injuries sustained by the characters), “Lost in Translation” (translations of non-English dialogue when subtitles were not given), “Any Questions?” (questions that the viewer might be asking him or herself after the episode), “Ashes to Ashes” (obituaries of characters who die), and “Music/Bands” (a list of the music played on the show). These points are quite enjoyable for a reader casually perusing the book.

Stafford also includes summaries of books either referenced on the show or read by its characters, and explanations of historical or philosophical details relevant to understanding Lost, and biographies of the actors and actresses on the show. The episode guides are also flanked by sidebars on topics like “Parent Issues” (the characters’ difficulties with their parents), “Seating Arrangements” (a discussion of the seating plan on the plane that crashes), and “‘What Did You Do?’” (a list of instances where characters have, accusingly, asked each other this). As a fan of the show, I found this to be an extremely enjoyable book, although Stafford does include information that will only be relevant to truly committed “Losties.”