Title Lost Horizon Series --- Author James Hilton Illustrator Robert Andrew Parker Publisher The Readers Digest Association - 1990 First Printing 1933 Category Classic Warnings None Main Characters Chalmers Bryant, Consul Hugh Conway, Lo-Tsen, Wyland, Rutherford, Sanders, Mallinson, Barnard, Roberta Brinklow, Chang Main Elements Lost Civilizations, Utopias Website ---

James Hilton’s bestselling adventure novel about a military man who stumbles on the world’s greatest hope for peace deep in Tibet: Shangri-La.

Hugh Conway saw humanity at its worst while fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Now, more than a decade later, Conway is a British diplomat serving in Afghanistan and facing war yet again—this time, a civil conflict forces him to flee the country by plane.

When his plane crashes high in the Himalayas, Conway and the other survivors are found by a mysterious guide and led to a breathtaking discovery: the hidden valley of Shangri-La.

Kept secret from the world for more than two hundred years, Shangri-La is like paradise—a place whose inhabitants live for centuries amid the peace and harmony of the fertile valley. But when the leader of the Shangri-La monastery falls ill, Conway and the others must face the daunting prospect of returning home to a world about to be torn open by war.

Thrilling and timeless, Lost Horizon is a masterpiece of modern fiction, and one of the most enduring classics of the twentieth century.

I've starting the year lately with a classic, last year was Pride and Prejudice, but this year I picked one with a more fantastical leanings. Its hardly a fantasy, other than the fact that Shangri-la doesn't exist (or does it, do we really know?) but its such a magical place that it could hardly be anything else. If you could offer me a place where I could hide away from the rest of the world, surround myself with a library and knowledge, and have the most amazing views of moutain vistas, I'd probably take the offer. The longevity is definitely a bonus too. I don't blame Conway for wanting to stay, no matter the pressures he got from the other members. Maybe it was a prison so sorts, they were kidnapped after all and not permitted to leave. Well, I guess I'd also object to not being able to see my family and friends again.

Often in tales of uptopias you realize they are really dystopias in disguise, that the only way to maintain the peace and harmony is to remove people's free wills. And Shangri-la isn't perfect, as I noted, if you wanted to leave, you couldn't. But otherwise, seemed a pretty perfect place.

Not sure what else I want to say. There isn't really a lot of action, its more thought provoking, a mystery that needs to be solved and with a twist I knew was coming. This was after watching the movie. I had to laugh that the old missionary nun was replaced with a pretty young woman in the movie because, of course it had to be that way.

The ending left me sad for Conway. I mean maybe Shangri-la really was a dystopia masquerading as a utopia and he was lucky to get away before he got sucked into their cult. But what if it wasn't, what if it was exactly what it claimed to be. The novel ends open-ended with no clear conclusion as to the fate of Conway and whether he found peace or not. But the the magic of the place, of Shangri-la is enduring. In 2025, as a certain U.S. President is turning the world upside down, it is very, very tempting to find oneself a secluded, near inaccessible mountain haven, hidden and safe from the nonsense of the rest of humanity.