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 3, the second of five episodes to be written by the public, was launched this month. It gave Scotswoman Aileen her first glimpse of the book thief, thanks to her dog Watson's keen nose - watch the story so far. Right now we're working on the plot for episode 4 with help from all the visitors to the website - it will be launched on Friday, 15 May 2009.

Where the story goes next remains in your hands. You can suggest plot developments by visiting www.thelostbook.net 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.

The Changeling is the story of thirteen-year-old Tom Curdie, a Glaswegian boy on probation for theft. Originally published in 1958, this new paperback edition from Canongate includes an afterword by Andrew Marr.

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

This book is going to travel around the world as a bookray. PM at any time, with your shipping preferences, to join. The book is a thin paperback (15mm, 232pp, 180g).

Bookray
Nell-Lu, UK
karen07814 UK (Int)
arturogrande UK (Int)
ApoloniaX, Germany (Europe, Int surface mail)
EllaPress, Argentina (America)
arabd, Mexico (US/Canada/Mexico/Belize/Guatemala preferred, South Americas or Europe next, Int if needed)
kerbam1421, USA (USA)
Rrrcaron, USA (USA)
sarkiegirl, USA (USA preferred, Int if needed)
felicia-fairy, Australia (Aus, NZ or Asia)
gussy916, Singapore (Asia)
...

Please could you all do four things:

1. Make a quick journal entry when you receive the book.
2. Read and send on within four weeks - or make a journal entry to let us know how you're getting on if you need longer.
3. Make a journal entry when you've finished.
4. Use the cheapest method of shipping available.

And, enjoy the book!

Brilliant, tragic portrait of a young boy from a slum area of Glasgow. Tom Curdie is intelligent enough to have caught his teachers' attention, but most interpret his self-sufficiency as slyness and insolence. Charles Forbes, however, thinks he sees a vulnerable boy who can be helped - but in taking Tom on holiday with his family, he exposes the boy and himself to stresses he hasn't imagined or anticipated.

Reserved for the next person in the bookray.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The Changeling is all packaged up and ready to go to the Post Office this afternoon. Happy reading, karen07814!

I picked it up yesterday and put it down today. The mark of a good book. I will be finding more of Robin Jenkins and breaking the bank.
If you want to read more of Robin Jenkns the next one I bought is a bookray here: http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/6318847
Feel free to join

Perfect timing - this arrived just as I was finishing my last bookring. Thanks very much.

The last reader described this book as brilliant - and that's spot on.
Everything you could want in a book is here - wonderfully descriptive writing, gorgeous locations, real situations and, most of all, delicately drawn, believable characters.
As in life, no-one is completely good or completely bad. Charles Forbes sees himself as a selfless philanthropist, when really self-interest, ambition and narcissism play a large part in his decision to take slum child Tom Curdie on the family holiday to the idyllic village of Towellan.
Tom Curdie himself is a wonderfully complex character, who provokes both sympathy and revulsion in the reader.
And as for the ending, I don't think I can remember a climax to a novel which was so powerful and affecting.
The book is very much of its time - it is a period piece which could never be written now. But that's not to say it's out of date or irrelevant. It is one of the best books I've read for a long time.
Thanks for sharing - it's now on its way to ApoloniaX.

The Changeling just arrived here in Bremen
I'll start reading today.
Thanks for sending it, arturogrande!

Unputdownable! A quick and easy read, but my no means a shallow one… Interesting characters – and even more interesting to see them being transformed, especially the teacher Forbes and his daughter Gillian. Sometimes I found people a bit overdrawn, but this lead to some rather comic situations in this novel, that is basically a tragedy. Jenkins has done a great job exploring what happens to idealism combined with naivety (and other, hidden motivations), what happens when some kind of a social experiment is not thought through. There is that immense lack of understanding (which only Gillian overcomes), the total ignorance of what a return to his “home” means to Tom… the destructive force of the thought of returning alone… A thought provoking book I recommend. I just ordered my own copy, as this one will leave for Argentina tomorrow.

Travelling to Argentina now :-)

Just got it!
It's in one piece, don't worry.

I'll pass it on as soon as I'm done with it.