I admit it, I got hooked on the TV series Lost, although I came on board the bandwagon a bit late, only catching the final few episodes before this season ended. But yes, it sucked me in, and like millions of other fans, I anxiously await the next season, and the next round of clues to the greatest unsolved mystery since JFK (and Roswell, and 9/11 and why the heck we can’t find Osama!).

Getting Lost is a great collection of essays by all kinds of people - those involved with the series in some indirect way, and those who just have something important to add to the already smoldering fire. Some of the essays are humorous, like the comparisons between Lost” and Gilligan’s Island, and some, like the essay by pilot Clayton Davis, clear up grave inconsistencies in the series. Hey, who needs facts when you’ve got great characters, mysterious storylines, and plenty of hush-hush conspiracy theory coming out of the jungle trees like dead passengers?

Fans will love the wise musings of editor Orson Scott Card, who suggests Lost is as close to perfect as TV has ever gotten, and Wayne Allen Sallee’s awesome reference guide of Lost lingo. My favorite is G.O. Likeskill’s “Lost Connections,” which pulls a Kevin Bacon on the series’ stars and co-stars. Great fun! This book is filled with little tidbits of detail and information that add one more piece to a puzzle that many believe might never be solved. I tend to think the creators of the series have no idea what is going on and are making it up as they go along, but perhaps they are doing something even more clever, like letting the rabid fans write the show’s progress. Wouldn’t that be novelty television – fans writing the show as it goes along?

Whatever the truth is about the lost people on the lost island, fans just can’t get enough, and they will devour the insight in Getting Lost - at least until next season, when unfortunately most of it will become obsolete as new mysteries are revealed. Isn’t that, though, why we keep watching?