S. - J. J. Abrams, Doug Dorst

S. (Mulholland, $35), a library book (complete with a Dewey decimal number on its spine) with artifacts tucked between its pages and a correspondence filling its margins, is a mysterious and beautiful object. In it, J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst weave a multi-layered story of a notorious and secretive author and the two young strangers on a mission to discover his identity and the truth behind his disappearance. The plot of the novel, The Ship of Theseus, unfolds simultaneously with the dialogue scribbled around its edges, telling the two intertwined stories at once and inviting the reader to put the pieces together and find out what happened. S. is an ingenious puzzle full of wonder and artful detail, a book to be explored and be savored.