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]

It's Alive:
The Island is alive and Jacob is the brain. The island can control its own matter and create apparitions (like the smoke monster). Also three rich and powerful "Kings" are involved in some power play against each other over the island: Hanso/Dharma, Widmore and Paik. Widmore was Ben's superior in the past but has been overthrown recently. There will be a throwdown between Hanso, Widmore and Paik.

Lindelof: B+, Cuse: B
They both agree the the island is "probably" alive, kind of a gimme. But Lindelof tells this fan that after last weeks episode, "they might be losing a King." And Cuse encourages the fan to tweak the theory a bit, which after watching Ben go toe-to-toe in an angry staredown with Widmore, I kind of like the three-man Risk game. Besides, it coincides nicely with the actual playing of Risk that foreshadows it in the latest episode.

Blame The Dog:
Are Walt's dog Vincent and the smoke monster one and the same? The fan based this assumption on the fact that Walt is special, therefor his dog should be as well. Vincent can make loud "dinosaur" noises. Also Vincent stares at the other survivors before the first attack and knows English when told to, "go find Jack." Also there are a lot of dog references throughout the show.

Lindelof: C, Cuse: A
Cuse admits that they had discussed doing a dog flashback in Season 1. Lindelof makes jokes, explains nothing which makes me believe they haven't actually decided what to do with Vincent, but Cuse wants to go in that direction.

Time Travel, It's A Disease:
Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun and Sayid are the only people that can leave the island because they were not near the Swan Station when it imploded. Therefore they are the only survivors from Oceanic 815 that can leave without dying. The people close to the station are all infected with a time travel disease and must take the Dharma shots along with finding their constants when they time travel (Desmond did both). Baby Aaron is safe because he was injected at birth.

Lindelof: A, Cuse: B+
Cuse practically agrees with the fan and says that there is indeed a sickness involved with the island. Lindelof even says, good catch with the sickness, but the Oceanic 6 aren't the only ones who can leave.

Dharma is Everywhere And Planned It All:
Dharma is actively trying to get someone back on the island to finish their work with the Valenzetti Equation. Ms. Hawking is a part of that plan, the fan explains that, "Her visions include a complicated pattern of people that are required to be on the island in order for a set series of events to occur for Dharma to return to the island. With the help of others, including Christian Shephard, Richard Malkin, Nadia and Libby, the group ensures that specific people are on the plane in order for the series of events to occur." So everything that has happened (Desmond causing the plane to crash etc.) has to happen in order for Dharma to get control again.

Lindelof: A, Cuse: A
Both Cuse and Lindelof agreed with most of this theory: everything happened for a reason and was predestined by Dharma. Cuse and Lindelof wouldn't even really comment because it was very, very accurate, not 100% but close.

Baby Aaron Is Old Man Jacob:
Baby Aaron grows up but is always entangled in the islands presence, even off the island. He eventually gets involved in some secret military/science program that (of course) goes horribly wrong. Aaron is then trapped in another time or dimension. From there he can manipulate space and time but can not get out and becomes old man Jacob on the island. So this whole thing is a desperate effort from Jacob over many years to change the course of events that led him to his time prison.

Lindelof: A, Cuse: A
Cuse says the space-time idea is pretty spot on but the facts are a little blurry, Lindelof agrees. Maybe Jacob isn't stuck in time but can play with time? Still the idea that Jacob and Aaron are the same seems to make some sense. [USA Today]

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.

• "The Watch": This was the kickoff scene for these scenes, and it didn't bode well when there was some hammy acting and dialogue. Basically, Jack's father gives him a watch, which belonged to his father. And no, he hadn't been keeping it in his ass. The moral of the scene is "Don't be a crappy father like I was."

  

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• "The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt": Remember Neil, the frozen yogurt salesman from Season One? The producers always promised he'd become "more interesting." Sadly, that doesn't happen in this clip when he tells Hurley to make a move on Libby or he'll step in.

  

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• "King of the Castle": Ben and Jack play a friendly game of chess, and Ben promises Jack he won't try to stop him from leaving the island... but the island might. He also tells Jack that one day he might look back and regret leaving, and that if he does he hopes that he'll remember this conversation. Ooooooh! This is probably the best acted of all of these, and written by comics scribe Brian K. Vaughan to boot.

  

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• "The Deal": Juliet visits Michael while he's held captive by the Others, and tells him that he can believe Ben's offer of freedom. She confesses that she's staying there to help save her sister, and wouldn't he do anything to save Walt? Michael sure isn't happy about it.

  

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• "Operation: Sleeper": Juliet wakes Jack up and tells him she's been working with Ben all along, and that the other survivors have been right not to trust her. Off all the mobisobes, this one felt the rip-offiest.

  

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• "Room 23": Alarms and panic around the Barracks! Juliet tells Ben they need to let Walt go, but Ben tells her he's special and that Jacob wants him there. She shows him a pile of dead birds around Walt's window and wants to know what's so special about that. Is Walt's power the ability to get birds to commit suicide? We've seen it before, and we'll probaby see it again.

  

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• "Arzt & Crafts": It's Arzt! He's in his pre-dynamite phase, and he's trying to convince everyone on the beach not to move to the caves. That is until they hear the smoke monster's crazy horn bellow, and he craps his pants.

  

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• "Buried Secrets": Michael stumbles across Sun burying her fake California driver's license in the woods, and she confesses that she was going to leave Jin. They almost kiss, but then Vincent cockblocks them. That's right, the dog makes 'em stop.

  

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• "Tropical Depression": Arzt confesses to Michael that he lied about the monsoon season, and that he just wants to get off the island. He also tells him that he'd flown to Sydney to meet a woman he'd been chatting with on the internet, but she left him at the restaurant. Boy, this guy really has a depressing life.

  

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• "Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack.": Jack meets Ethan while looking for medicine, and Ethan whips up a few tears and tells Jack his wife and child died in childbirth. Then he creepily stares at Claire. After he leaves, Jack creepily stares at Ethan, like "Hey... I know something is weird about that dude."

  

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• "Jin Has a Temper-Tantrum On the Golf Course": Jin has a Happy Gilmore freakout on the golf course after he can't sink a putt. While Hurley and Michael look on, he sinks to his knees and curses the ball. Probably the best scene out of all of them.

  

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• "The Envelope": Juliet burns her hand on something in the oven, and then almost confesses to Amelia and shows her Ben's x-rays, but someone rings the doorbell. Another exercise in frustration, since this one is really just a deleted scene. Okay, maybe this one was the big ripoff.

  

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• "So It Begins": There's a POV shot of Vincent running through the forest until Jack's dad stops him and tells him to go wake Jack up on the beach, just moments after the crash. So is Jack's dad alive? This is the only real "What the hell?!" clip in the whole bunch.

  

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