Lost Horizon by James Hilton

Short, but sweet. Eye-opening. Now I feel like I truly understand what is meant by "Shangri-La." That's always a good thing when you read a book: it lets you in on a secret. Like Catch-22 did with its title concept. Lost Horizon did that too, with the quasi-fictitious Shangri-La.

But besides that it was just a nice little adventure story. And the way it was told with the prologue and epilogue about the second mysterious disappearance of the hero Conway gave it an appealing fact-or-fiction quality. The peaceful philosophy of the inhabitants of Shangri-La were plausable and inviting.

I watched the movie about a week after I finished reading this, and it was spectacular too. Frank Capra did a marvelous job. Usually movies made out of books suck, but this didn't. Maybe it had to do with the era. In fact, it probably did. Attention spans were longer in 1937 than they are in 2002, so they could tell the story the way it needed to be told. Sure, they could do a remake today with dazzling special effects and an all-star cast. But it wouldn't be the same. This movie was just charming the way it was. I didn't quite understand how come Conway's brother had an American accent when Conway himself was English. But whatever. That's nitpicking.