The Book of Lost Books is a book of stories involving kings, heretics, untimely interruptions and back room deals, falling tortoises and fairy princesses, train crashes and war atrocities, bravery, cowardice, rent boys, chamber maids, love, quests, puzzles and a crocodile. From Homer to Jane Austen, Shakespeare to Ernest Hemingway, this is an account of books destroyed, misplaced, never finished, or never even begun. With academic shaggy dog stories, swashbuckling historical fables, wry ironies and imaginative fantasia, The Book of Lost Books is the perfect read for all bibliophiles. Hilarious, insightful, endlessly fascinating, sometimes shocking - The Book of Lost Books is a wonderfully quirky but utterly romantic saga of our love affair with books.