This is a fascinating, highly illustrated non-fiction book about all the things we've lost over the years. The book is divided into sections of lost things rather than in date order - from art to knowledge to people to nature and history. There is a helpful index and a glossary so you can read it in different ways, either from cover to cover, dipping in, or by looking things up. We discover some things lost by design. For example, the author Terry Pratchett famously insisted that after his death his hard drive full of unpublished writings would be crushed by steamroller! Many, many things lost just by accident over the years such as the amazing sounding Yongle Encyclopaedia which contained 'all knowledge' from 15th century China - it was written by 2000 scholars and was 23,000 rolls of parchment of which a scant 800 still survive! Other lost stuff may yet be found by the next generation, such as stolen paintings by Vermeer and Rembrant that were taken from the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990! It's a really interesting book, very well put together with a combination of photos and beautiful illustrations to enjoy.