Wondering what to do with yourself with vacation coming up and all your favorite shows off-air until September? Those ever-creative folks who come up with Lost have the answer for you: The Lost Book Club. That's right, now Sayid, Jack and Kate have left the island, why shouldn't they make an attempt to become the next Oprah?

The Book Club - running through the Lost section of ABC's website - is the creation of executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who explain why they came up with the idea in a friendly, fireside, letter-to-the-reader:

Over the first four seasons of LOST we've managed to incorporate more than 40 books into the show. For the first time, we've catalogued a list of books available in audio form that relate in some way to LOST. Some are being read by our characters, such as Sawyer, or are just sitting on shelves in episodes of the show; others connect with various themes of the series.

We hope you'll join our informal Lost Book Club. To paraphrase one of our heroes, Stephen King, to be a writer one must first be a reader. We find ourselves constantly striving for even a small measure of the accomplishment of what all these authors have achieved in their books. Pick up any of them and experience the richness of storytelling, character, and theme, and then allow your imagination to connect all that back into our show.

We can't promise you any of these books will lead you to answers about LOST, but we can promise you'll be enriched for having read them.

The list of books in the club includes title, author, synopsis and "relevance"... which ranges from the, well, relevant (Season four's episode "The Constant" "bears some resemblance to the 'unstuck in time' theme" of Slaughterhouse Five) to the somewhat less so (Valis gets a mention because "Locke offers it to Ben"). You can view books by what position they hold to the show's mythology ("Dialogue", "Background" and "Show Theme"), and join in discussions with other fans about the books.

That's all well and good, but still... A Book Club? I feel like we're a year away from the official Lost cereal at this point; it'll come with a note from Damon and Carlton that notes that it won't help you understand the show, but they can promise you that it's mmm mmm mmm delish.

Lost Book Club [ABC]

After interviewing showrunner Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the mechanical journalists have their own idea of where the show is heading:

[T]he creators did let slip that the rest of this season will revolve around some very real—and very big—physics: the Large Hadron Collider, the much delayed European particle accelerator that could reveal information about the Higgs boson and dark energy. Some physicists believe the LHC will produce mini black holes, which might actually be able to open a one-way portal to another universe—a gateway that can only be kept open by a force of energy as strong as Jupiter ... or an electromagnet inside a desert island. 

Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Impossible, thinks the Lost creators are using cutting-edge science to lay the groundwork for a transversible wormhole to another point in space and time—a trip foreshadowed in an off-season video about the so-called Orchid station, which Lindelhof and Cuse promised would be a key to the next few episodes. "They're amping up the energy to the point where space and time begin to tear, and the fabric begins to rip," Kaku tells PM. "When the fabric of space and time begin to rip, things that we consider impossible become possible again."

Lost Science Debunked [Popular Mechanics]

According to Lindelof, "Season 4 is about who gets off the island and the fact that they need to get back. Season 5 is about why they need to get back, and season 6 is about what happens when they get back." Meaning there's going to be a lot of sitting around on that island throughout the rest of this season. Sure we've had some flash-forwards, but it feels like you're going to see Locke cooking breakfast for some time to come. Plus they've run out of eggs, so I hope everyone enjoys pancakes. Although they must realize it's getting slow, because Cuse added, "There will be very significant mysteries answered in the seventh episode. The eighth episode is non-traditional and the start of something new."

Remember how bad Season Three got last year? People were proclaiming the death of Lost everywhere, and the ratings were plummeting. Then all of the sudden it got better right at the end, and everyone cheered and said it had regained the magic. Well, we're several shows in, and it's already showing signs of sputtering again. We're bored with the whole fate of those left behind, the new Freighties are sort of boring, with the slight exception of Jeremy Davies. We're mired in squabbling that seems to repeat from episode to episode, the Dharma Initiative remains a big unanswered mystery, and it's just the Jack, Kate, Locke and sometimes Hurley & Sawyer show. If you think it's boring now, just wait. Lost takes a month-long break in a two weeks, then returns with the wacky episode 8. We hope it's not just another empty hatch.

You'll play Eliott, a character who (surprise!) we haven't seen before. He's suffering from amnesia, and will be sent all over the island solving mini-games, deciphering clues, and yes, even punching the sacred numbers into the hatch computer. You'll find out a bit more about stuff like the mysterious black smoke and the Black Rock ship that's been marooned on the island for years. You'll also interact with the main characters, although they've used soundalikes for most of them, which is fairly lame.

Since we've been wasting far too much time on the Lost viral marketing games, this game looks even more promising. Check out the trailer for it here. However, we wonder if automatonic versions of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer can tide us over. Will we be playing all of our favorite shows as video games in a few months? Come to think of it, we'd welcome the chance to play a cool Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica game. Keyword being cool.

'Lost' Video Game Preview — Writer Taunts Me With Knowledge Of Black Smoke And Four-Toed Statue [MTV Multiplayer]

Well, if you haven't seen the show, then we doubt you'll "get it", but for the uninitiated out there, 815 was also the flight number of the Oceanic flight that crashed onto the island. We'd also forgotten about the four-toed giant statue... what the hell does that thing mean? Plus we love how they say Mr. Friendly throws like a girl because he most certainly does.

In the future, we wouldn't mind having all television shows and movies given to us this way. They've compressed 69 hours of Lost down to 8 minutes, and kept most of the pertinent facts that you need to know intact. At this rate, we could also watch every episode of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and the entire run of Planet of the Apes (both the movies and the television show) in an hour. Our brain might not survive the onslaught, but think of all the time we'd save. Plus it would make commercials entirely subliminal, which would thrill the advertisers. How can you skip past what you don't even know what you've seen?

Capsulized television. Bring it on.

For the uninitiated, Life On Mars, despite it's extraterrestrial sounding name, takes place entirely on Earth. In the BBC series, police detective Sam Tyler gets into a car accident in 2006, with David Bowie's "Life On Mars" playing on his iPod, and wakes up in 1973, where the same song is playing on an 8-track player. He soon finds himself doing police work for the cops back in the 70s, and the series makes it interesting by keeping you guessing as to whether or not he's in a coma and dreaming everything, if he's alive in 1973 and mentally deranged, or if he's actually traveled back in time.

Season Two opens with a scene that shows that Sam is indeed in a coma in 2006, but what he's doing back in 1973 might be affecting the future, putting a definite scifi spin on the show. While it was a hit in the UK, the show ended earlier this year after only two seasons. With the track record showing that U.S. versions of BBC hit shows usually tank (The Office being a notable exception), David Kelley faces an uphill battle. If this writer's strike ever ends, we'll be looking for Life On Mars next year and hoping it doesn't turn into a lame version of Journeyman. In the meantime we'll catch up on the original.

Is There Still 'Life On Mars'? Bloody Hell, Yeah [Televisionary]

Let's assume for a moment that you're one of the thousands of actors trying to make it in Hollywood, fighting daily for auditions, waiting tables by night, and hoping your big break will come along at any moment. Then suddenly you're catapulted into fame and fortune and starring on a hit show that films in, of all places, a tropical paradise. Sounds fairly idyllic, so what would lead someone in that position to become a drunk-driving boozehound?

• Daniel Dae Kim: Kim plays enigmatic Korean Jin-Soo on the show, and he's the latest in a trio of Lost stars drinking their way to DUI charges. He's also the first actor to actually fight his arrest in court. He pled not guilty on Friday to the charges from his October 25th arrest, which included a blood alcohol reading that was above the "highly intoxicated" level. We're not sure what sort of evidence he'll be presenting in his case, but look for plenty of black smoke and escape hatches.
• Cynthia Watros: After playing one of the survivors from the tail section on the show, and later Hurley's love interest, Cynthia was pulled over and arrested on the same day as fellow costar Michelle Rodriguez, although she was driving a separate vehicle. She plead guilty to driving under the influence, and was later killed off by Michael on the show via an "accidental" gunshot. Ka-blam. However, it looks like she'll be returning this year, albeit in flashbacks and dream sequences. Don't give up on Hurley getting some action just yet.



• Michelle Rodriguez: Michelle played hothead L.A. cop Ana Lucia, and her problems onscreen mirrored some of her offscreen dramas, including an arrest for assault, a hit and run, and a previous DUI. After being arrested the same day as Cynthia Watros, she also plead guilty and was offed seconds before Cynthia was on the same episode. Coincidentally, the show where they both bit it was called "Two For The Road." She's back on the hot seat lately, having broken her probation. Chances are she'll be serving more time before she appears in James Cameron's Avatar.

We're not sure if the monotonous days of filming are driving these actors to excess, or if it's something darker and more mysterious. However, if we were betting people, we'd have to put money on Josh Holloway's Sawyer as being the next to guzzle and gas. After all, it would be fitting for his character who has amassed quite a hoard of alcohol on the show. With the writer's strike holding up filming, it might be causing everyone to catch Island fever.