Welcome to The Lost Book!

The Lost Book is a collaborative adventure in storytelling. It's taking place online and anyone can join in. At its heart is an animated web series: the adventures of investigative journalist, and BookCrosser, Aileen Adler, who is trying to solve the crime of a missing book. Episode 4, the third of five episodes to be written by the public, was launched last month. It saw Scotswoman Aileen going undercover in New Zealand to listen in on the plans of evil genius Beryl Potts - watch the story so far. Right now we're animating episode 5 (which will be launched on Friday 19 June 2009) and working on the plot for episode 6 with help from all the visitors to the website.

Where the story goes next remains in your hands. You can suggest plot developments by visiting The Lost Book website now. Each month between now and July the storylines will be pulled together into the next episode, animated and published online.

There are loads of ways you can get involved and it won't cost you anything. Please help us to write the story for the web series - make suggestions or vote on other people's ideas. You can also join our special guest writer Jasper Fforde and reconstruct a stolen book in our weekly microstory competition. You can enter our soundtrack competition by creating your own music for the web series. You can even produce your own animation.

And, you can read this book, tell us what you thought of it, give it away, and follow its journey.

The Lost Book is a partner project to the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust's 2009 reading campaign, The Lost World Read 2009, which is using free books, online resources and events to get people reading The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. The Lost World Read is the largest collaborative reading project ever seen in the UK. We're extending the reading campaign, thanks to the generosity of project sponsors Canongate, by giving away other free books throughout The Lost Book.

One Moonlit Night is a classic originally published in Welsh in 1961. The Guardian's review of this new edition, published in January 2009, says "A welcome return for this Welsh short classic, first published in 1961 and translated by Philip Mitchell in prose which miraculously conveys the incantatory biblical and Celtic cadences of the original" - while The Independent suggests it's "an early precursor to The League of Gentlemen"!

So join in, wherever you are, and have fun!

Update: The Lost Book ran until July 2009 and is now finished - apart from lots of books like this one that are still travelling and finding new readers!

This book is going to travel around the world as a bookray. PM at any time, with your shipping preferences, to join. It's a slim paperback, 180pp, 12mm thick, weighing about 150g.

Bookray
Nell-Lu Scotland (Int)
mafarrimond Wales (Int)
Rrrcaron USA (USA)
dakini6 USA (Int)
Dancesports Australia (Aus/NZ)
tokorua Australia (Int) - asked to be skipped
Sfogs New Zealand (Int)
lucy-lemon Wales (UK/EU)
MKtiny UK (EU preferred, Int if needed)
kizmiaz Portugal (EU)

Bookray complete!

A story of madness and violence in a small Welsh town. There's a hallucinary feel to the narrative, which is mostly in the voice of a young boy, with strange semi-mystical interludes, and the occassional sense of an older narrator looking back.

Unfortunately, there's also quite a dull feel to the narrative - quite impressive, as there are plenty of events filling the 172 pages. I found the prose read better in a Welsh accent (the rythyms work better) but my internal Welsh accent isn't very good.

I was amused by the short glossary at the end. It may be an urban myth that the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow, but the Welsh certainly have lots of words for hill. "Allt" means hill, as does "Bron" and "Fron". "Foel" is bare hill. "Garth" can mean hill, or enclosure, garden or ridge. "Rallt" is also hill. "Rhiw" is hill, ascent or slope. Most of the other words included are synonyms for valley.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Travelling to mafarrimond in Wales. Happy reading!

Received in the post and looking forward to reading the book.

Dew, but I did enjoy reading the book. As a fellow North Walian, I enjoyed the references to places mentioned in the book especially Debigh "Asylum" as I spent some time working there as a student nurse in the 1970s. Of course it was different then to the place described in the book but the big gates and stone steps leading to the reception area were still there.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Posted on to Rrrcaron today. Hope you enjoy the book.

Received this book in the mail today. Will get to it soon.
Ruth

This was quite the story, so full of violence and all kinds of other things that no young child should have to witness. And he took most of it in stride.... just another day. One friend dies, the other moves away, and then his mother getting admitted into an asylum, that would put anybody over the edge. So much for such a small book.... Sending on to next reader

Received this today and diving in immediately...

I did enjoy the story, but this little book took longer to get through than expected. I believe the darkness of the tone made it difficult for me to sit and read it for long stretches. There are a few hauntingly beautiful passages in here, though, and it is definitely worth reading. Sending off to the next reader.

Book arrived safely - all the way from Alaska - the snow on the mountains on the accompanying hostel brochure looks very beautiful and cold.

The book has a lot of tragic happenings but the style of writing prevents it from feeling overly negative, actually written in a positive tone.

Tokorua has asked to be skipped, I'll send on to the next person.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

posting to the next person today.

Arrived safe in New Zealand! Thanks Dancesports!

This was an odd read. I did enjoy it but it was very different.
I didn't seem so much a book as a time line of thoughts weaving together, jumping back and forth between times. Just as the thoughts of the boy changed as he walked down the lane as he remembered stories and songs told to him by and about people he met on the way.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent on to the UK.

This book is my #11 for the
2010 'KEEP THEM MOVING' Challenge arranged by Guinaveve.

Oops, I thought I had made a JE on this! It arrived about a week and a half ago, and I'm really looking forward to reading it, especially because it is set in Wales :-)

I actually finished this some time ago, but have just been really bad at moving it along. I'm sorry. PMing the next person for their address now, so hopefully this little book will be on its way asap. I really enjoyed it, so thanks for sharing!

Arrived today, with postcards :) Thanks, lucy-lemon

I found this a difficult read, but interesting. A boys perpective of life in rural Wales; must be the early 1920's (?), just after the Great War. On its way to Kizmiaz in Portugal (from where I have just returned from holiday, by the way - had a great time:).

Well this one has really travelled all around the world.
It's with me now and it'll be the next one to read after I finish my current one.
Thanks for sharing The lost Book

This was not an easy read at first but once I got over the oddness of the narration I just couldn’t put it down.
The story is very interesting and rich in its description of life in a small, poor and disturbed village. The main character is fascinating and the way he talks about all those moonlit nights and the adventures with Moi and Huw just kept pulling me in. Life is hard in that village and the cast of characters (you have to love the way they’re named) is representative of the poor conditions in plenty of those quarry and mining villages. There are various dark and disturbing events and most of the characters are somehow connected with them, it’s a sad tale but told with such humour that you don’t get too depressed.
I enjoyed the book and I think this is the first Welsh author that I’ve read, so thanks a lot for that Canongate.
I’ll keep the book travelling soon.

RABCK for my 5th BC anniversary.
Hope you enjoy it.

I have just received this book in the post. Many thanks kizmiaz for the RABCK!

A darkly evocative read, where every page stamps bleak imagery in your mind. The writing was a beautiful poetic cross between Burgess and Nabokov, if only I could read it in its original Welsh language.

Given to a friend.

A gem, difficult to let it go.

A gem, difficult to let it go.