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The Door to Lost Pages (Lost Pages)

by Claude Lalumière (Goodreads Author), Paul Di Filippo (Introduction)

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46 · rating details · 127 ratings · 40 reviews

Step through the door to Lost Pages and escape a life you never wanted...

On her tenth birthday, Aydee runs away from home and from her neglectful parents. At first, surviving alone on the streets is harsh, but a series of frightening, bewildering encounters with strange primordial creatures leads her to a bookshop called Lost Pages, where she steps into a fantastic, someti...more

Paperback, 200 pages

Published May 3rd 2011 by Chizine Publications (first published April 14th 2011)

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Apr 20, 2012 Donald Armfield rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: galley, horror-thrillers, wishlist, favorites, fantasy

First off I want to thank the publisher ChiZine Publications for letting me read this over at Netgalley.
Yamesh-Lot is the dark God. Ruler of dreams. The Lost Pages the bookstore.
The story evolves around a bookstore called "Lost Pages" What dreams are nightmares. Lucas the book store owner sees hallucinations just like Aydee who comes from a drug addiction home. Mother & father showed no love for her. She finds her way to an alley way. Other characters come along with the same visions of Yame...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Joanna Paula Cailas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: absolute-faves, fantasy, magic-realism, mainstream, horror

I'll never look at a rooster the same way again. :D Green, blue and brown.

Ignore that. There are no pastoral scenes here, and no mentions of roosters at all. There's magic, all sorts, and self-discovery, all sorts. No shortage of gasp-inducing scenes and sentences. I love the lioness! Rawr! I cheered when she swiped at that couple (and then shuddered when she did more than swipe). There's this girl. One moment, she's a starving and abused little waif. The next, she's a ward of the lioness Goddes...more

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May 09, 2012 Sophie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads, genre-bender, short-stories, weird-reading, canadian-author, reviewed

The Door to Lost pages is a collection of connected short stories, all written with a mix of the weird, sci-fi, bizarre, horror and fantasy genres. There are a handful of experiments with meta-fiction as well. Many of the stories left me with a kind of sharp heartache, a bittersweet hope that the fanciful dreamy parts of the novel are real and that the indications of a grim reality are the only fiction the author intended.

The book pulled me in easily. The prose is very simple and kind of allurin...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Heidi Gonzalez rated it 2 of 5 stars

Very strange and hard to follow I'm not sure I can say I actually liked this book. It is a series of short stories that all seemed to blend together. This was quite disappointing since the first few stories were actually quite good and related to the quirky bookstore Lost Pages which I was much more interested in than some of the other stories. Not all of the stories were horrible though but the later ones do come with a caution since many of them were very sexual and erotic but not over the top...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Karissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got an ebook of this book through NetGalley(dot)com. This was an interesting collection of short stories all based around a bookstore called Lost Pages. The stories are some-what ambiguous and quite varied as far as their content goes. They were an okay read, but the writing style wasn't spectacular and the stories were all a bit vauge.

The book starts with a intro that's nothing special. It's followed by a prologue and six additional stories all featuring a girl named Aydee and a bookstore cal...more I got an ebook of this book through NetGalley(dot)com. This was an interesting collection of short stories all based around a bookstore called Lost Pages. The stories are some-what ambiguous and quite varied as far as their content goes. They were an okay read, but the writing style wasn't spectacular and the stories were all a bit vauge.

The book starts with a intro that's nothing special. It's followed by a prologue and six additional stories all featuring a girl named Aydee and a bookstore called Lost Pages. The stories span a number of years and in the background feature a battle between some good and evil Gods; all of which is tied into the various stories.

I will start by saying this is a collection of stories for adults. The first couple stories are intriguing and relatively innocent. The first story talks about how Aydee left her home and ended up at Lost Pages. The following one talks about a young boy Billy who hunts monsters in his spare time and uses Lost Pages as a source of information. The stories that follow these have a lot of unconventional sex described in detail. There is sex with same sex partners, sex in groups, voyeurism, etc. Hence, the reason I would say adults only for this collection.

The concept of Lost Pages is a wonderful one, that all book lovers will enjoy. Lost Pages is a bookstore that contains books that don't exist elsewhere and cover topics that are magical or no longer remembered by the rest of society. People find the Door to Lost Pages when they need something...other...in their life. Very cool concept.

The writing style of the story was so, so. With such an awesome concept I would have liked a more descriptive or sensual writing style; at times the style of the writing came off as a bit cold and a bit simplistic for the topic being covered. So, not my favorite writing style but okay.

All of the stories are tied into a battle between some good and evil Gods. This is the part that gets a bit ambiguous. The concept behind the Gods and what they are is never explained very well. It is all a bit confusing and blurry. Which may be what the author intended, but for those who don't like amibiguity in their literature this is just a heads up.

These stories have a lot of weirdness to them. The early ones remind a bit of Charles deLint but stranger. The later ones reminded me a lot of some of Elizabeth Hand's books (Waking the Moon, Blacklight). There is no doubt that as a reader you are in for some weirdness when reading these stories.

Overall it was an okay read and a quick one. I loved the idea of the Lost Pages book store and enjoyed some of the strangeness in these stories. The tone of the stories changes a lot from the early ones to the later ones. There is a lot of ambiguity, as all the stories are tied back to some obscure mythology that is never very well explained. Because of this some of the stories are a bit hard to follow. I expected the writing style to be a bit more lyrical than it was, it was a bit simplistic in style for the creativness and strangness of the stories. For those of us who like strangeness in an urban fantasy setting I would recommend some of Elizabeth Hand's work, Catherynne Valente (absolutely beautiful writing with a large dose of strangeness) or Jeff Vandermeer over this collection.(less)

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Sep 26, 2011 Anncleire rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

According to an old folktale, nightmares once covered the night sky, blotting out the stars. When those creatures of darkness invaded our dreams the night sky opened up, and the stars reveal themselves.

The door to Lost Pages è un libro strano, affascinante che ti trascina tra le sue righe senza darti la possibilità di sfuggirne. Sembra una raccolta di brevi racconti tutti collegati da un unico argomento.
In realtà racconta la storia di Aydee una ragazzina di dieci anni che fugge dalla casa dove h...more According to an old folktale, nightmares once covered the night sky, blotting out the stars. When those creatures of darkness invaded our dreams the night sky opened up, and the stars reveal themselves.

The door to Lost Pages è un libro strano, affascinante che ti trascina tra le sue righe senza darti la possibilità di sfuggirne. Sembra una raccolta di brevi racconti tutti collegati da un unico argomento.
In realtà racconta la storia di Aydee una ragazzina di dieci anni che fugge dalla casa dove ha abitato e inizia a vagare per le strade fino a ritrovarsi in questa libreria, Lost Pages dove il proprietario Lucas la adotta, come era successo a lui tanti anni prima.
Tutto il libro si sviluppa attraverso i racconti dei vari clienti e alla crescita di Aydee che si ritrova alla fine a gestire il negozio da sola.
Il nucleo centrale però è rappresentato tra una mitica lotta tra Yamesh-Lot una creatura leggendaria che comanda gli incubi, e the Green Blue and Brown God che si impegna a lottare contro la notte e il male, cercando di proteggere l’intera umanità.

La cosa che più mi ha colpito del racconto è proprio questo rimanere sempre organico nonostante l’alternarsi dei punti di vista e degli espedienti che Lalumiere utilizza per rappresentare al meglio le situazioni.
L’ambientazione resta sempre piuttosto vaga anche se sempre concentrata sulla libreria che offre rifugio e risposte a chiunque capiti nelle sue vicinanze.
Non sempre è facile riuscire ad immedesimarsi nella narrazione, ma in qualche modo Lalumiere riesce sempre a tenere desta la narrazione catturando l’immaginazione del lettore con particolari fantastici. Sembra quasi una fiaba ma in realtà gli incubi sono molto reali e l’autore gioca tantissimo sulle debolezze dei singoli personaggi.
I vari protagonisti si distinguono sia per età che per background ma alla fine sono tutti accumunati dalla lotta contro il male, da questa battaglia epica che divora qualsiasi cosa al suo passaggio. Non sempre il finale è quello che ci si aspetta e Lalumiere è bravo proprio in questo nel rendere memorabile ogni pagina costringendo il lettore a rimanere sospeso per conoscere l’effettiva entità del male. Non si è mai al sicuro si deve sempre lottare per proteggersi.

Un particolare che mi ha colpito molto è la spregiudicatezza con cui Lalumiere scrive, ci sono dei pezzi in cui l’erotismo è molto spinto, ma rimane sempre funzionale alla storia e ha un preciso significato nello svolgimento. La precisione delle descrizioni, nonché la possibilità di vivere certe situazioni nel contesto idealizzato della storia ci permettono di entrarci pienamente. E devo dire che la mano maschile si sente. E non per l’ovvio, ma perché in qualche modo si va dritto al punto, a volte una donna è più soggetta a perdersi nelle sue razionalizzazioni.

Consiglio la lettura di questo libro, che seppur breve è molto denso, passionale e estremamente piacevole.
Ringrazio moltissimo Netgalley e ChiZine Publications per avermi dato la possibilità di leggere questo libro in cambio di una mia recensione.
(less)

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Sep 15, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy, urban-fantasy

I was drawn to The Door to Lost Pages because among other things it sounded like a wonderful bookstore, one you'd like to find on a little side street and explore. The chapters in the book are really more short stories that are loosely strung together with Aydee and the store as common elements.

Bestial Acts introduces Aydee as a 10 year old leaving home and encountering supernatural beings that in turn give her comfort and lead her to the store. The other chapters have different main focuses, t...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Warnie B. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, short-stories-novellas-essays, fantasy, read-in-2011

I have no idea where this came from, but it was on my Nook, so i figured I'd give it a try. And I mostly really liked it--interesting characters and concepts, especially Lost Pages itself, and I definitely enjoyed the way the story is told, kind of in bits and pieces and from different points of view at different points in time (oddly, that's something I didn't like in another story I read recently, but I felt it worked really well here). I found myself a little blindsided by the sudden graphic...more

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May 17, 2011 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lost Pages wasn’t the only bookshop I frequented, but the books I found on its shelves were… unique. I never saw any of these books anywhere else. Bizarre Bestiaries. Dictionaries of dead, obscure languages. Maps to lands that may never have been. Essays on religions with unfamiliar names. Obscure mythologies. Accounts of wars no history teacher had ever mentioned. Such were the wares of the bookshop that fed my teenage dreams.

***

Claude Lalumiere’s The Door to Lost Pages is a strange meta-exerci...more Lost Pages wasn’t the only bookshop I frequented, but the books I found on its shelves were… unique. I never saw any of these books anywhere else. Bizarre Bestiaries. Dictionaries of dead, obscure languages. Maps to lands that may never have been. Essays on religions with unfamiliar names. Obscure mythologies. Accounts of wars no history teacher had ever mentioned. Such were the wares of the bookshop that fed my teenage dreams.

***

Claude Lalumiere’s The Door to Lost Pages is a strange meta-exercise in writing, and for the creative process of book publishing. Lalumiere uses short fiction, some of which has previously seen publication, to construct a tenuously linked novella of surreal encounters, bookended by a fourth wall-shattering dissection of the writer’s process—which, on a conceptual level, holds a mirror to the nigh-mythical Lost Pages bookstore and the dark god Yamesh-Lot, whose tendrils infect the world with fear and nightmares: one is a source for inspiration and salvation; the other is a bestial devourer of creation.

As was evident in his collection of short stories, Objects of Worship, Lalumiere writes with a delicate-yet-perfunctory sense of style, playing simple colours to high effect, as with the recurring uses of green blue and brown—life, sky, and earth respectively, representing an earthly realm apart from the heavens. The Lost Pages bookstore, a salvation metaphor for both the characters and for the avatar of the writer-as-self, as depicted in the coda, is North on a compass—a point of grounding for those who need it, for those who seek to lose themselves in the fantasies of possibility, because the admission of one’s reality as truth would be more disastrous than they’d care to accept. It’s existence is a questionable fact, appearing when it is needed most to defend against the nightmares that encroach upon the world.

The takeaway from the mythology these loosely connected tales provide is that salvation will not come with ease. It must be fought for, and an understanding between one’s desired self and a past or present more closely tethered to reality must be earned through confrontation. It absolutely cannot be won hiding from one’s nightmare vision of the truth amongst the stacks of a fantastical bookstore, no matter how tempting that may be.

As an exercise in creating a universal theme through short fiction—simultaneously crafting a book that is equal parts surrealist fiction and subjective first-person authorial examination—The Door to Lost Pages succeeds more on the merits of its structural experimentation than it does the implementation of its skin-thin fantasy that exists beneath a surface scraped raw. (less)

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Feb 15, 2011 Dreadlocksmile rated it 4 of 5 stars

First published in April 2011, Claude Lalumière’s novella ‘The Door To Lost Pages’ was constructed and complied from a sprinkling of previously published segments, which once woven together, became the lucid and mesmerising offering of surreal and highly imaginative fiction that is this dreamlike tapestry of interconnecting stories.

DLS Synopsis:

After tolerating her drug addicted parents for ten the first ten years of her life, Aydee finally decides to run away from home. The cold concrete of the...more First published in April 2011, Claude Lalumière’s novella ‘The Door To Lost Pages’ was constructed and complied from a sprinkling of previously published segments, which once woven together, became the lucid and mesmerising offering of surreal and highly imaginative fiction that is this dreamlike tapestry of interconnecting stories.

DLS Synopsis:

After tolerating her drug addicted parents for ten the first ten years of her life, Aydee finally decides to run away from home. The cold concrete of the streets soon envelops her, until out of reality comes a giant lioness to offer comfort and warmth. Waking up the next day ten-year-old Aydee witnesses a battle between two winged creatures that appear outside of the vision for everyone else on the crowded inner-city pavement.

From the wounded skeleton angel, Aydee is sent in search of both help and answers to which she is directed to a mysterious bookshop known as Lost Pages. There she is given a new life, amongst the crammed and overcrowded bookshelves. And over the years that follow, she too will meet those that too come in search of answers to those questions that have always troubled them. Through the shop door will come customers from all walks of life, each baring their own story and their own demons.

Lost Pages is where the books that tell the tales of forgotten and lost histories can be found. A corner in the universe where the threads of time collide. A place with answers. A place where many eventually see their true home…

DLS Review:

The novella begins by leaping through an open door into a mindboggling world of gods and monsters, demons and angels; all at war with one another in the chaos of dreams and multi-layered timelines. Confusing and daunting to say the very least, the reader claws through this early onslaught of godly warfare to re-emerge the other side of this short but arduous prologue in a stupefied state of disorientation.

The calming waves of a reality that appears somewhat normal to us is waiting in the next segmented section of the novella. From here a sense of slow understanding can be gradually (and rewardingly) pieced together. For with Lalumière’s delightful prose comes a fluid and instantly accepting storytelling that so effortlessly draws the reader into his dreamlike world.

Unrestricted imagination twined with the sheer enjoyment of storytelling bring together what is essentially a patchwork of tales; each one stemming from the inspiring seed that is Lost Pages. This is a book that is so unashamedly by and for book lovers. Around every corner is the fantastical escape of books. On every shelf lies another secret to be uncovered between the pages of a forgotten book. The love and passion for books and the mysteries that they hold constantly envelops the reader throughout each one of these miniature tales.

Parallel universes , multi-layered timelines and histories that contradict each other open up a whole world of magical possibilities. The limitless scope for entertaining the author’s unquestionably excitable imagination is breath-taking, if not utterly refreshing. Leave your worries at the door and walk on into the fantastical world where magic and mystery lie hand-in-hand with the beating heart of humanity and the limitless questions within the universe.

For all its easily enjoyable storytelling, ‘The Door To Lost Pages’ does shift and lightly stubble across perhaps too broad a landscape to allow the reader to remain part of the puzzle. The briefness of the novella may have driven too much of a restricting stake through the overall tale. The looseness of the individual story segments may be too untameable to be woven into a whole. However, what it lacks in its completeness, it certainly makes up for in its imaginative adventure.

This is a novella to become quickly and unconsciously lost within. Its open expanse of lovingly created passages into dreamlike stages of life, immerse the reader in the unobstructed enjoyment of storytelling. And that’s what it always seems to come back to here. The utter and unashamed enjoyment of storytelling. And that pretty much sums up the book - the sheer enjoyment of storytelling…(less)

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Oct 21, 2011 Trista Siegel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

I have to say I was disappointed. On NetGalley it said that it was 200 pages in paperback but my e-reader said 95. Did I get the entire story or part of it? Because to me it felt like this was unfinished. There was no time to connect with characters or even understand. Whatever this author was trying to get at he didn't get there. The writing wasn't that great either. The beginning grabbed me and had my attention but the farther I got into the story the worse it got. Especially the last chapter....more

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Feb 22, 2013 Derek Newman-Stille rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-speculative-fiction

As with many of his stories, Lalumiere’s The Door To Lost Pages evokes in the reader a desire to question that reality is just what we see or make of it. He plays with intersections of multiple realities, duplicates, changeable worlds, and diversity of perception. He acknowledges that for a world of diverse people, the way we see the world, the way we define reality, is itself diverse, multiple, and changeable. We do live in a world of multiple realities and every person has their own reality, t...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Andrea Blythe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, fic-short-stories, fic-fantasy

Lost Pages is a bookstore unlike any other. Inside are books that can be found no where else, histories from alternate Earths and alternate worlds, encyclopedias of the impossible, and tomes presenting varied versions of reality. These books are written in a multitude of languages, some forgotten, some not even human.

Many people find their way to Lost Pages, such as Aydee a young girl who abandoned her neglectful parents and Lucas who came to run the story after seeking sought solace in the stra...more

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May 23, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Claude Lalumiere's The Door to Lost Pages is a short novella of interwoven stories patched together to form a fascinating and enthralling pastiche that orbits in and around a bookshop known as Lost Pages. It offers brief snippets of the worlds and mythologies housed in the mysterious bookshop and gives readers a tiny taste of the lives and souls of the people who have encountered its book lined, dog filled interior. The novella doesn't really offer a standard plot structure, though there is an o...more Claude Lalumiere's The Door to Lost Pages is a short novella of interwoven stories patched together to form a fascinating and enthralling pastiche that orbits in and around a bookshop known as Lost Pages. It offers brief snippets of the worlds and mythologies housed in the mysterious bookshop and gives readers a tiny taste of the lives and souls of the people who have encountered its book lined, dog filled interior. The novella doesn't really offer a standard plot structure, though there is an overarching story to a certain extant, instead examining how the lives of everyday people are affected in startling ways by the smallest things.

I should say to start that if you are a fan of books, if you've ever willing explored the dusty corners of bookshops and libraries for no other reason than the shear joy of it, you should stop reading this and go grab a copy of The Door to Lost Pages. Likewise, if you have ever been enchanted by the interwoven mythologies with a fictional world, particularly if you've enjoyed Mythos tales so often linked by the arcane text of a certain mad arab, you should go grab a copy of The Door to Lost Pages. If, as a child, you have ever been transported by a book to somewhere else, either as an escape from something or just as an exercise of imagination, you should go grab a copy of The Door to Lost Pages.

For me the story that enchanted me the most, that resonated most deeply, was that of young Lucas. As Lucas himself says, “Looking at me now, you'd think I'd dropped form my mother's womb right onto a messy pile old, lurid paperbacks and arcane leatherbound tomes. Except in the fourth grade there was an incomplete set of an old battered encyclopedia on told of an old filing cabinet in the back of the classroom” an encyclopedia that “...hinted not only at alternate parts of the world but an altogether different way of apprehending reality.” While there is a more fantastical meaning to that in Lalumiere's novella it is also a fairly accurate description to how I feel about my earliest encounters with the written word. In Lalumiere's world books are magic, literally, and he cleverly uses children to convey that pure and unadulterated response to what is written between their pages.

If the books in The Door to Lost Pages are magic and Lost Pages is the place that collects them. It is the repository of things the world has chosen to forget (or ignore) and it exists in a nebulous state across time and worlds. Those things that it collects aren't just books, they are people too. Aydee, neglected and all but ignored by her drug addicted parents, and Lucas, a bit fey and intelligent drawn to the shadowed corners of the world, are both children who don't quite fit in the world we know. These two characters who form the foundation of the novella are in many ways themselves lost pages (in the library world the people that shelve books are sometimes called pages, a fact I found amusing and appropriate while reading this book) collected by the book store. Several times throughout the novel either Lucas or Aydee will serve as a means through which a new story is told becoming the means through which the knowledge they steward is shared with the world.

The Door to Lost Pages is 224 page love letter to books and stories. It's a book about being lost and all the varied meanings that simple word can espouse. It's about the fear of being lost in an uncaring world and about the wonder of being lost in a sea of knowledge. It is a meaty collection, despite its diminutive size, of lush imagery and stories that are by turns touching and unsettling. If you're looking for something to read that falls a bit off the beaten path you should definitely take a walk through The Door to Lost Pages.

Note: I sorry about that last line, I couldn't resist, I have self control issues. By way of apology I'll leave you with the opening lyrics to Audioslave's “Like a Stone” which The Door to Lost Pages called to mind:

“On a cold, wet afternoon
in a room full of emptiness
by a freeway I confess
I was lost in the pages
of a book full of death
reading how we'll die alone
and if we're good we'll lay to rest
anywhere we want to go.” (less)

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Apr 28, 2013 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-books, read-2013

4 Stars

I enjoyed this novella more than I thought I would. It is a book of stories linked through an old book shop, The Lost Pages. The themes in each of the stories is quite apparent even though none of them have any real plot or much world building or character development. They are however filled with magical prose and imagery. They are what dreams and nightmares may be. This whole novel is reminiscent of a Catherine Valente novel, almost like an adult fairy tale. It is also probably the clos...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, galley

What a strange and fascinating collection of stories, all focused on one thing -- Lost Pages, a bookstore that will appear at different points in time and worlds, full of the most impossible things. And dogs. Lots of dogs.

If I did drugs, I suspect portions of this book would be similar to tripping out. I definitely felt like, at the very least, I should be looking at the pages through some tinted glasses.

It's a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, erotica, and pure imagination. Not sure how he d...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Emma rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 04, 2011 Michelle (In Libris Veritas) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, netgalley, short-stories

In truth I barely know where to start with this review so bare with me.

The Door to Lost Pages is a series of short stories that all revolve around the bookstore Lost Pages and the dark god Yamish Lot. These have apparently been published separately before and are now in one novel. I found this is to be a really cool idea and was really looking forward to seeing what fantastical world Lalumiere had created. They are surprisingly complex short stories and from the description of the novel I wasn't...more In truth I barely know where to start with this review so bare with me.

The Door to Lost Pages is a series of short stories that all revolve around the bookstore Lost Pages and the dark god Yamish Lot. These have apparently been published separately before and are now in one novel. I found this is to be a really cool idea and was really looking forward to seeing what fantastical world Lalumiere had created. They are surprisingly complex short stories and from the description of the novel I wasn't quite expected what I received. I was expected more fantasy based storyline but instead there is a sort of gritty realism to the novel as a whole. There are of course fantastical elements that are linked to the worlds mythology and parallel universes but it's somewhat over shadowed by the straight forward manner in which the author describes the human interactions.

I enjoyed the stories Bestial Acts, Let Evil Beware!, and Lost Girls. Mainly because these are the three that deal directly with Aydee and I enjoyed the near straight forward plot of them. But the other three stories I wasn't very fond of at all (Dregs, Dark Tendrils, and Coda). I found these to be confusing and far too blunt to be enjoyable. I can admit that this is impart my fault as I was expecting what I was giving in the first two books which follow children, but instead of that same childish fantasy I got graphic scenes of sex. I found it tad misleading. The writing of these three are choppy and confusing, and at times downright frustrating as you try to figure out exactly what is going on.The short stories also do not offer anything in the sense of a normal plot structure so don't expect to transition smoothly from one story to the next, it will not happen and it might only confuse you more.

I'm giving it a three because those stories I did enjoy were wonderfully written and hint at deeper meanings, though it may take more then one read through to pick up on them. The author clearly has talent and a vast imagination, but I feel that overall this was just not for me. I really only recommend this to those who enjoy gritty fantasy that do not necessarily have to have a plot structure. Also it's probably best if this were read by adult as it does tend to be fairly graphic at times. (less)

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Jan 14, 2012 Kate O'Hanlon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story-collections, fantasy

A collection of linked short stories about a fantastical bookshop and some elder gods of nightmares.
Better than I was expecting (I picked this up for free for CZP's Friday 13th ebook giveaway, probably wouldn't have given it a look otherwise). I especially liked "Dregs", which was a pleasing exploration of sexual awakening and how you can fool yourself into thinking you've left your old self behind, and "Lost Girls", which opened up the mythology a little more.

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Apr 20, 2012 Tom Loock rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, mainstream-literature, stories

Strange book. The Door to Lost Pages is a handful of previously published stories (one of which I recognized because I had read it in Interzone). Based on that story I would have never bought this one, but it was a unexpected gift. Since it is just a very small booklet, it was an extremely quick read despite 200+ pages and I finished it against my better judgement and inner resentment a quarter of the way into it. As a mass market paperback with small print this would come in under 30 pages.
What...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Megan11 rated it 4 of 5 stars

A strange book. The back cover explains nothing of what the book is actually about, though I suppose that makes the book that much more interesting. I certainly wasn't expecting the sex scenes (I haven't read anything by Claude Lalumière before), personally I feel like they were done tastefully, even though nothing was 'left out' so to speak. I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I enjoyed it, but I can't place why.

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Jul 13, 2012 Amber Polo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I want to read Clarence and Charlie's Old World Encyclopedia. I want to visit Lost Pages, meet the dogs, and have a latte at the Small Easy, Books and dogs with a lion thrown in were just my style . Claude Lalumiere's linked stories made me certain he's a victim of sleepless nights. I loved the bookstore, but don't want to live in his nightmares.

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Apr 19, 2013 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Other than the beautiful cover I did not like anything about it. It had potential for the first few pages and the basis of the storyline wasn't bad, but it was so hidden underneath so many irrelevant things in the book. Was it necessary to put every detail of the one man's sexual encounter? Just not my kind of book.

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May 14, 2012 Karen Heuler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well worth reading. I liked the magical/mythical aspect of the stories, and I thought the sexual turn was surprising and made sense. Fairy tales, journeys--there are often underlying messages about sex as the lure and the danger, and it fit this story perfectly.

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Sep 04, 2011 Sassy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up on sale having never heard of it, then consumed it in a single afternoon. It was a fun, almost guilty pleasure read for me. I would imagine this book enjoys a mostly male readership. Sort of like Gaiman-light, but I mean that in the best way possible.

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Mar 03, 2012 Ian Roditi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Una librería perdida, de páginas perdidas para gente perdida.

A ratos demasiado alucinógena, a otros ratos demasiado sexoso, pero siempre buenísimo.

AME la mitología alrededor de aquella librería perdida.

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Jan 24, 2012 Christopher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nice, albeit lurid interconnected stories featuring a bookshop that shows up for people whose realities occasionally blur with a sort of Lovecraftian Dreamlands backstory. Smoothly written. Reads quickly.

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Sep 23, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: linked-stories

I'm not sure this belongs on my "linked stories" shelf, but seeing as it's a bunch of unpublished short stuff that was then connected, in a sense, and published all in one, that's where I'm shelving it; so sue me. :P

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Mar 08, 2012 Phil rated it 1 of 5 stars

The pick of the month for the Powell's science fiction book club. While I appreciate the attempt at a new mythology and parallel dimensions... it just falls painfully on its face.

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Jun 15, 2011 Jedi Wright rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reminds me a bit of Clive Barkers older stuff...at least it has that sense of magic and wonder and intrigue that I recall feeling when reading Barker's work as a teenager. A good, quick read.

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About Claude Lalumière

Claude Lalumière is the author of the story collection Objects of Worship and the mosaic novella The Door to Lost Pages . He is the editor or co-editor of twelve anthologies, including the Aurora Award finalist Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction . Claude has published hundreds of articles and reviews, and in the 1990s Claude owned and managed two Montreal bookshop...more

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