Product Description

Eighteen years old and completely alone, Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little other than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city. Taking a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books called the Arcade, she knows she has found a home. But when Rosemary reads a letter from someone seeking to “place” a lost manuscript by Herman Melville, the bookstore erupts with simmering ambitions and rivalries. Including actual correspondence by Melville, The Secret of Lost Things is at once a literary adventure and evocative portrait of a young woman making a life for herself in the city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159874 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-11
• Released on: 2008-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307277336
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Hay's debut has all the elements of a literary thriller, but they don't quite come together. Arriving in New York from Tasmania with $300, her mother's ashes and a love of reading, 18-year-old Rosemary Savage finds work in the Arcade Bookshop, a huge, labyrinthine place that features everything from overstock to rare books. In its physicality, the store greatly resembles New York's Strand (where Hay worked), and its requisite assortment of intriguing bookish oddballs includes autocratic owner George Pike and his albino assistant, Walter Geist. Rosemary is suspicious and worried when Walter enlists Rosemary's help to respond to an anonymous request to sell a hand-written version of Herman Melville's lost Isle of the Cross (a novel that in fact existed but disappeared after Melville's publisher rejected it). She confides in Oscar (the attractive, emotionally unavailable nonfiction specialist), which only hastens the deal's momentum toward disaster. Hay does a good job with innocent, intelligent Rosemary's attempts to deal with sinister doings, and methodically imagines the evolution and content of Melville's novel (which features a woman abandoned much like Rosemary's mother). Hay also ably captures Rosemary's nostalgic memories of Tasmania. The three narratives—intrigue, Melville, Tasmania—prove so different, however, that recurring themes of loss and abandonment fail to tie them together. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
The Secret of Lost Things is many things at once: a mystery, a coming-of-age novel, and an inquiry into literary obsession. While critics noted that the novel aspires to such heights as A. S. Byatt's Possession and Martha Cooley's The Archivist, they generally agreed it reaches neither in scope or depth. Still, the characters, if sometimes caricatured, are vivid (except for Melville, whom we see only in letters); 1970s New York comes alive in its grit and anonymity; and the intriguing plot kept most reviewers on their toes. In sum, better literature about literary quests exists, but The Secret of Lost Things will please diehard fans of the popular bookstore genre.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
Hay has woven an irresistible tribute to--or perhaps a warning about--the obsessive nature of book collecting. Delicately spun around the social and sexual awakening of Rosemary Savage, a young Tasmanian emigre to New York, this cautionary tale tracks the life-altering influence the rumor of the recovery of a lost manuscript by Herman Melville has upon several employees of a cavernous used bookstore. After the death of her mother, Rosemary moves to New York and is hired by George Pike, the crusty owner of the Arcade. Modeled after the world-famous Strand Bookstore, the Arcade is a refuge of sorts for a handful of idiosyncratic employees, including an embittered albino manager, a good-hearted transsexual cashier, an insufferably aloof nonfiction expert, and an avuncular rare-books curator. When a mysterious letter offering the sale of Melville's missing opus arrives at the Arcade, rivalries are formed, conspiracies are hatched, and an inexorable chain of events inevitably resulting in tragedy is set into motion. Rosemary's naivete serves as an effective counterpoint for the machinations of her suddenly desperate and grasping coworkers. Dedicated bibliophiles will relish the Melville story-within-a-story angle. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A "booky" book
I devoured this book and loved MOST of it.

It's a warm story of a young girl finding her way from Australia to the US. She finds a job in a used book store, which is a wonderful setting for any real book-lover. The people she meets inside the store are quirky and interesting.

Rosemary ends up on a quest for a lost Herman Melville transcript. The story line provides mystery and intrigue.

My only complaint is that (as another review mentioned) the characters are not well enough developed. Also, I didn't feel at all satisfied with the conclusion regarding Oscar, Rosemary's infatuation. I never felt that he was fully explained to the reader.

All in all, it was an enjoyable read and I recommend it to anyone who loves books and bookstores!

A Wonderful "Secret" World of Books
I loved this novel about the goings-on inside what may sadly soon become an anachronism: a bookstore, populated by a fascinating cast of oddballs, in New York City. This old, vast, dimly lit bookstore is the sort that is a world unto itself, and the young Rosemary, freshly arrived from Tasmania, of all places, becomes absorbed in its doings when she signs on as an employee.

"The Secret of Lost Things" is the sort of book that a book-lover will cherish, full of literary references and quotes, atmospheric descriptions of the world of books, and of the eccentric types who populate that world. There is action and intrigue, too, around the finding of a lost manuscript of Herman Melville (one of my favorite writers), and the author has woven her plot using actual letters from Melville; these make the events of this novel more plausible and even riveting.

Reading this novel was espacially pleasurable becuse of the author's lovely way with the language; while still modern, she manages through her construction and vocabulary to capture the peculiar formailities of the classics of English literature. I look forward to her next book; the quest for another lost manuscript, perhaps? It could be an interesting motif for a series...

A Book About Books
This fabulous, coming-of-age novel about a young herione named Rosemary is really a book about books. Literary references scatter the pages along with humor and wonderful characters. Rosemary is an 18 year-old girl who comes over to America from Australia and finds herself working in a bookstore with an array of odd people. She soon discovers a missing manuscript written by Herman Mellvile (which, in actuality, was written but never published). The world of books and Mellvile draws her in.
This is a great book for every reader who loves books. Hay gives Rosemary a wonderfully fluid narration with lovely insight to her surrondings, leading you to love the character and the author herself. The people that surrond the herione herself are just as interesting. The beauty of this novel is that there are no "weak" characters. Every side story to the main tale that is Rosemary's is just as insightful and beautifully told. The curiousity of each person is so intriging. Hay's debut is full of quirks and, in the end, is really just a great read.