The Arrival of S. By J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

When I first heard about this book I was so intrigued I set about immediately to obtain a copy of my own. Our local Barnes and Noble didn't have it, but they said they would search surrounding stores and call me back. Not one Barnes and Noble in the Chicago area had a copy to sell. I went online to Amazon.com. The copies there were out of stock. I checked with an Indie store in my town, who said they had one copy available, but when I arrived within the hour it was sold. The more barricades I encountered, the more I wanted it.It is an intriguing novel about "One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace and desire. A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.""The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V. M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a mysterious crew and launched on a distorting and perilous journey."Interspersed throughout the pages containing the novel, and the handwritten notes between the two readers, are slips of paper. Telegrams. Postcards. Napkins with hand drawn maps. It is indeed a work of great intrigue to me. I'm not even sure how to read it. Some people have suggested taking out each item, marking it with a post-it note and page number, and reading it when you come to it. Some people suggest reading the novel all the way through first, then going back to the handwritten notes. I'm not sure how I'll go about it, and am certainly open to suggestions from you. I'm just glad I finally have it in my hands, thanks to alibris.com