Customer Reviews

Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost, & Where Did it Go?

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a great book by a very angry man. The world has turned horrible as we have watched, and Bywater tells us some, only some, of the ways in which this horror has been foisted on us. Many of the essays are very funny ..... and then not so funny. He has seen the absurdity of life and has now told us about it. Anyone who is satisfied with the modern world and does not feel that much has been lost will hate this book. Anyone without a sense of humor will hate this book. Anyone incapable of feeling outrage at what "they" (and we all know who they are!) have done to us will hate this book. Anyone lacking a soul will hate this book. Anyone who thinks that the government/the corportions/the people across the street have our best interests at heart will hate this book. Anyone who thinks he will live forever will hate this book. I love it.

At first and to a shallow mind the essays seem random and unfocused, but gradually the theme emerges: we've been had.

From the review from publisher I had expected any number of things. What I got was essentially a comedy novel along the lines of the Devil's Dictionary. With entries like: Absurdity, Gloves, and Patchouli(which I disagree with I think the author just needs to go find a hippie and he'll find his patchouli). While it's good for what it is I was hoping for something a little more serious.

People, civilizations, and even works of art and cities vanish, leaving human culture to be defined as much by their absence as their presence. LOST WORLDS: WHAT HAVE WE LOST, AND WHERE DID IT GO charts these missing curiosities of the past, using extensive quotes from source materials in its catalog of loss. From lost ideas and languages to icons of civilization, LOST WORLDS takes a journey through history to examine the impact of the past. An inherently fascinating, informative, thoughtful, thought-provoking , and highly recommended read!

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I ordered this on the faith of the title, but reached the last pages (at least I reached them) rather... lost.
Often spiteful, occasionally prurient, more often than not off topic, it is a poor catalogue of gripes and complaints. We are treated, amongst other things, to an exhaustive list of the author's gadgets (only the ones he can see, mind you, one assumes there are more, stuffed in closets) and an alphabetical arrangment of griefs with annoying cross-refernces in pure hyper-link style.(Doubtlessly to better hide the cobbled-together themes; when in doubt, arrange it all from a to z...) Little effort at sustaining any kind of reflexion on the nature of things lost, just an underlying malcontent.
There are some very good pages, he would be well inspired to take the 12 best entries and rewrite the book.
Perhaps what the author most regrets losing is his own Childhood Lost. Goodness knows it's never happened to anyone else.

John HOWE

I set this one aside after 50 pages, when it became clear that it wasn't going to get any less tedious.

This book is not particularly interesting and not at all informative. Supposedly, it is humorous, but you have to be really British or badly constipated--or, probably, both--to think so. The only reason for its existence seems to be the author's smug academic self-admiration, and his ability to convince a publisher that it's justified.

I can't imagine why anyone would read this thing. There's just nothing there.

Failed the first chapter test...irritating chattering classes book that no doubt enables amusing dinner party conversations...clearly I am too common to appreciate its wit...sigh back to the scullery where I belong

This book is billed as a catalouge of things "lost" to the modern world..The now extinct dodo bird on the cover(gone since the end of the 19th century)is supposed to set the tone for the collection of random articles inside of the book...
...but it doesn't quite work out that way..The author is angry that this world isn't static..He is angry that"things ain't the way they used to be.."apparently he hasn't looked in the mirror lately,and noticed that he isn't fifteen any longer,and that,like the rest of us and the rest of this world he too has changed,and not necessarily for the better...Sure,there are certainly areas in this life that you or I wish had remained the same as we fondly remember them"back in the day",but the reality of this life is that EVERYTHING CHANGES,and that nothing remains the same...NOTHING...
Another theme with this author is that the things we have lost need not have been lost,and that what they have been replaced with more times than not are inferior to the originals...Well,maybe,but what I may like you may not...indeed,what I may consider superior you may consider garbage...Whining about it isn't going to bring any of it back,nor will it convince the unconvinced..
There are many areas in life where things,creatures,people just plain outlive thier usefulness..They fail to adapt..They become the victims of fickle fashion...something "better"comes along...This is how it has always been..The dodo bird,for example,was hunted into extinction,but,in part at least,vanished because it could not replicate itself in sufficent numbers to keep one step ahead of the predators that killed it,most especially humans...Other creatures remain favorites of the predatory urges amongst mankind and yet still manage to survive...
This author attempts to be funny,but fails to do so...While I do agree that"what's funny"is a matter of taste,this author probably intended to reach a wide audience,and not just the handful that are both as angry and as unfunny as he himself is..Don't expect any real insight here..Don't expect irony,or belly-laughs either..About the best that can be said about this book is that it reads like a journal written by a literate but uninteresting writer...