Upon seeing that I was reading "In Search of Lost Books," my wife's comment was "They are in the piles on my side of the bed."A fun book to read with several little-known but interesting stories about books that might have been. I really knew of only one of the cases the author discusses--Gogol's unfinished sequel to "Dead Souls." But I know of several other cases (not discussed by the author), including a few that are quite personal:-Of course there is Aristotle's lost treatise on comedy, the subject of Eco's "Name of the Rose."-Aristotle's lost dialogues. These were supposedly lost in the fire at the Library of Alexandria. That would make a good subject for a novel.-Some of Wittgenstein's diaries. In the mid-1990s the heirs of a friend of Wittgenstein's, Rudolf Koder, sent the Wittgenstein estate a diary that Wittgenstein's family had given to Koder as a keepsake after Wittgenstein's death. This was then published by Ilse Somavilla, and then published with English translation by Nordmann and me. It covered 1930-32 and 1936-37, both private and philosophical reflections, that are quite interesting. This diary was completely unknown and unsuspected until its appearance. An almost-lost book.-Wittgenstein kept diaries irregularly over many years, so it is hard to be sure what originally existed. Bartley published an infamous book about Wittgenstein in which he claims to be recounting some dreams of Wittgenstein while concealing the source of his information. It would make sense that he had access to a diary from 1920. When researching his own biography of Wittgenstein, Ray Monk learned that after Wittgenstein's death a crate of his stuff was found in an apartment where he had lived, labeled "Kaufmann." Wittgenstein's executor, Rush Rhees, unaccountably had it shipped to Walter Kaufmann (presumably the only Kaufmann he could think of). After several months it was returned to Rhees, with suggestion that it was meant for Felix Kaufmann (a friend of Wittgenstein's from the Vienna Circle days). It turns out that Bartley's book was commissioned several years later by a series editor, Walter Kaufmann. It would make sense that there was a diary in that crate, but it has never been revealed. Walter's son told Monk that his father would never have taken something like that. Felix died in 1949, and had no heirs that might have saved the crate. We'll never know.-At various times Wittgenstein burned or had burned for him notebooks in which he kept preliminary reflections that served as sources for his typescripts. As with the diaries, it is hard to know what may have originally existed. For example, Wittgenstein's wartime notebooks cover 1914-very early 1917. There may have been notebooks that covered 1917 that he had destroyed, or there may not have been ones then. Similarly for his later work. In the late 1940s Wittgenstein lived for a time in a cottage on the remote western coast of Ireland, and he had a caretaker named Tommy Mulkerins who did various chores for him. While researching his biography Monk also interviewed Tommy. He recalled that he had burned a large bunch of papers at Wittgenstein's request. Presumably these were such preliminary notebooks. Monk asked Tommy if he had ever considered saving any of these papers. Tommy's utilitarian reply was--"why would I? They were written on both sides."-My father-in-law was a Presbyterian minister who was one of the founders of the Recreation Workshop which sponsored an annual ARW (Arts, Recreation, Worship) conference. This still is thriving. He was especially interested in the theology of play. He told me he had been working on a book about this for a long time, but that while traveling once he had lost the manuscript. And he couldn't find the time to recreate it.So, I found this book to be fascinating, as much for the lost books I know about, as for the lost books the author knows about. It was fun to read about and reflect on this. It was a great idea for a book!