Evolve Your Reading!

After bringing you Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde last year, and Kidnapped the year before that, the nation’s biggest group reading project is back, and this time the title that we’ll all be reading is Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. This year, it’s taking place in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and even parts of England.

This book has been chosen for good reason - it’s a fantastic adventure story, sure, but there’s a tie-in here, not only to the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Conan Doyle this year, but also the bicentenary of Charles Darwin. The Lost World is heavily grounded in Darwin’s theories, following a reporter and an explorer seeking out the one place in the world where dinosaurs somehow survived. When they arrive, they must fend off some savage ape-men, an apparent set of living missing links - which were a novelty in fiction to say the least when The Lost World was first published.

There are events aplenty to compliment the book giveaway. Arthur Conan Doyle is commemorated by tours, a play, an exhibition focusing on him and the probable model for Sherlock Holmes, physician Joseph Bell, and even an evening with the man himself (okay, so he’s played by the historian Owen Dudley Edwards, but keep quiet about it). Darwin will be commemorated in much the same way, with tours and some rather excellent sounding discussions of his theories. One of these, a conference Digital Evolution on 7 February at the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street, is even sponsored by, um, The Skinny magazine. See our listings online for details of this and all the other events.

Now, no book is an island – all books, if enjoyed, should lead to more reading. The Lost World was published in 1912, and fiction itself has evolved since then. So it seems appropriate to list four more books that can be read after you enjoy The Lost World, which are all linked to it in one way or another. Consider it an evolution in your reading experience! Where to start… well:

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Not a huge departure from The Lost World, but you can’t read Doyle without dipping into Sherlock Holmes! This is probably the most famous Holmes title. Holmes and Watson go travelling out to Baskerville Hall, where an apparently ghostly creature roams… Is this some supernatural menace? Who can get to the bottom of this mystery? Well, maybe the world’s greatest detective…

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

Moving on further, the Arthur of the title is Conan Doyle, the George is George Edalji, wrongly convicted for some ‘horse slashings’, a case that Conan Doyle was really involved in - the book is based on a true story. Is George guilty, or did prejudice taint his trial? Who can get to the bottom of this mystery? Well, maybe the creator of the world’s greatest detective…

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Why this? Well, Jurassic Park is an update of sorts of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (and when Michael Crichton wrote a sequel, he made his debt obvious by actually calling it The Lost World). Crichton couldn’t get away with having explorers find dinosaurs, so he concocts a plot where dinosaur DNA has been recreated. If you enjoy the adventure of The Lost World, you’ll enjoy the adventure in this book. Just don’t examine the science too closely…

The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway

How do you do a lost-world tale in modern times? Like this: the 'lost world' in this book is our world, destroyed by some sort of (obviously bizarre) apocalypse. The survivors are kept alive by the normalised air supplied by the Jorgmund Pipe, but when it bursts, our narrator and a band of assorted heroes must risk life and sanity to go and fix it. A fantastic book from last year, and one which includes all the fun of a normal adventure story whilst acknowledging, and even revelling in, the daftness of the form.

That’s one way that books can evolve. Pick up your copy of The Lost World to begin your own journey through the ideas of Conan Doyle and Darwin. And quickly!