Lost Horizon: A Novel Paperback – April 3, 2012

see above !

I readily recommend this book, but read my next sentence! I took off 1 Star only because the novel was written 90 years ago & the English language has changed so much that at times I had some difficulty understanding what was being said. Other than that, I enjoyed the story very much. The beginning was a slow start, but that didn't last once the main story began. I found myself feeling envious of the main characters! As our world has lately been turned upside down & inside out, I often feel I would be thrilled to find myself in a place such as they found themselves! A place where there is peace & quiet always! No politics!! No war. No greed. No hate. Everyone gets along with the others. Almost no quarreling, & what there is, is really very minor. And THAT was amongst our main characters, not the people of this wonderful land!! Rarely any illness. Living to be over 100 y/o & still be as one in their 40's! Not even THEN beginning to age! Perhaps even living multiple centuries! I'm not ready for THAT, but the rest sounds pretty wonderful! Surrounded by beauty, both man-made & natural. Many thousands of books to read & musical scores to play! And ever more being created! Never a hurry to do something because you've got almost all the time in the world! Who WOULDN'T want to be there? Sounds too good to be true, because it is, but it makes for a lovely story. I'll see a place similar, but ever so much better, & I hope you will as well, just not in this world! Their perfect world is called Shangri-La, mine is called Heaven.

Having read some of the reviews on the book, and just myself having finished reading it, it seems people fall into one of two camps: either you get it or you don't. It is the story of a man in the early twentieth century looking for more to life than what he has. Oh, he's got the good pay, the prestige, the job, yet he is unfulfilled. he is not happy. He has a "full" life, but it a meaningless life to him. He doesn't feel like he's actually accomplished anything. So, he and three others are captured and taken to unknown territories. Mallinson is, I think, kind of our everyman character and to a slight degree Conway's conscience. He is also the one who cannot seem to find peace in Shangri-la, a place of idyllic peace and beauty. He needs the loudness of "modern life", whereas Conway seems to have found what he is looking for, ie, the simple life and a purpose for life. His life didn't seem to make sense before arriving, but it now seems to make perfect sense. Where Mallinson sees purgatory or hell, Conway sees heaven. So, in the end, why does he leave? I think he felt a certain responsibility to Mallinson. I think he figures if he can get Mallinson home safely he can go back. I do like the vague ending. You don't know for sure Conway got back. You don't know if the lamas had a "Plan B" to account for maybe Conway leaving. I think he made it back; of course I am a bit of a sucker for a happy ending. There is a definite eastern philosophy slant, which I am all right with, as I am into the subject. Maybe that's part of the reason I like it.One can have their own opinion as to how the story is told, but the story itself is a good one. It is relatively quick reading as well. If you need explosions three times a page, or lots of action, this isn't for you. Not that it's actionless, it just isn't necessarily typical "action/adventure." It was a thoroughly enjoyable read for me though.

FIFTY YEARS AGO, I had the Great Discovery and Pleasure Of reading this amazing book. I had never forgotten it in all the years that have intervened.I am not exactly sure how things like this seem to happen, but recently I was struck with the idea of re-reading some of my "great books" from high school and early in my (now becoming long) life. Searching for this James Hilton masterpiece I discovered that it is celebrating it's 80th Birthday shortly, and also it's 50th anniversary with me! So, in honor of that "double" date, I promptly decided to immediately obtain another copy and re-read it. In my search here, I discovered this particular edition and decided upon it. It is reproduced from an original copy of the book, and also I note, in limited quantities of 250 copies at a printing.It is lovely to look at and to hold if you are like me, a hopeless old romantic! Reproduction of the original cover, and printed on ecru paper to have the look of an original, etc. The pages are, really, like looking at/reading an original edition. Beautifully produced and handsomely bound. Having been in the printing and publishing industry for my entire career, I truly appreciate efforts put in to reproduce grand old books, etc., for the pleasure of people today. It bespeaks the importance of certain items/pieces that this attention is placed thus to provide them for us in what today is pretty much a "throw-away-world" and gives us something more substantial to hold onto, or in our hands, as we read or re-read these works of importance to us.If you have never read this great book, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you do. It truly would be a shame should you not ever have had the pleasure of experiencing the words and message laid before one here in this book. If you have read it, you already know that which I speak of. However, have you ever tossed the idea about of a re-visit to Shangri-La as Conrad so desperately did? As I said above, I am a hopeless old romantic, so it is perhaps natural that I would be just as deeply pleased, moved, and "wish for" a lovely time and place such as Chang's Blue Mountains and the valley between...the valley that holds/held so very much.I would urge you to read, or re-read, this truly magic, magisterial, work by James Hilton. Truly, it belongs on everyone's "read" or "to read" list....and "more than once"!~operabruin

Good story, but the prologue and epilogue are missing. In the prologue and epilogue, a neurologist who found Conway in a hospital with amnesia after Shangri-La tells a friend that Conway recovered from the amnesia temporarily and narrated the story of his adventure in Shangri-La. A good piece of the story is therefore missing about what happened to Conway afterwards which distorts the overall arc of what happened.

Although not as captivating as I remembered from youth , thi story still holds enchantments. I found the beginning slow, but I got into mystery after a while.

Read this book back in high school, a thousand years ago. I’d loved it then & after reading it again, I know why: it’s still brilliant. A good book to lose oneself in.

O livro chegou todo amassado, não só a capa, mas também algumas páginas.

Kept me hooked. Loved the mysterious way of storytelling.Hope nobody finds Shangri-La ever. We humans will corrupt everything.I suggest this book.

I hadn’t heard of this before but it is well worth a read. It felt like a bizarre but intriguing mix between something like Dr No and Heart of Darkness for me.I will certainly come back to this one again

Nella lingua inglese è molto più interessante, almeno per me, della versione in lingua italiana.