A Good Book for Illumination of Lost

Let me preface this with the statement that when you love Lost as much as all of us here on this site it is easy to kind of color Lost with only your own perception and how it relates to your life, which is why its nice to be able to see how other see the show, there are always so many differing/conflicting views. I have seen a lot of books mentioned on here (whether they were mentioned on the show or someone found an interesting parrellel. I noticed one book that has has a glaring omission from the list.)
My favorite books when I was a younger was His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman (the first book is better known as The Golden Compass in America and Northern Lights in the UK and the other two lesser known are the The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass).
This book was criticized because a lot of people thought that it was a thinly veiled comment against organized religon/religon in general. It has also been widely argued that this trilogy is a direct rebuttal to CS Lewis’s Chronicle. Now looking back it does definitely have a Rousseauist view. But at 12 years old, I thought it was just a good read. The coolest thing about the book is the concept of a daemon*. Even now as an adult I can find a the influence from one of my other favorite books, Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. It really is a good read, even you are an adult, especially if you liked ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ (which I did).
A brief synopsis (just so you know I got it off wikipedia):
The story starts when Lyra Belacqua– a supposedly orphaned 11 year old girl residing at Jordan College, Oxford–secretly enters and hides in the forbidden ‘Retiring Room’ in the college, despite resistance from her dæmon, Pantalaimon – an animal-formed, shape-shifting manifestation of her soul. Hidden behind an armchair, Lyra and “Pan” see the Master of the college putting poison into wine intended for the visiting Lord Asriel, Lyra’s uncle, in an attempt to assassinate him. Lord Asriel later enters after the Master of the college has left and Lyra, having by now hidden in a wardrobe, bursts out and immediately warns him that the wine is poisoned. Rather than punishing her for being where she should not, he allows her to stay hidden if she will spy on the other attendees at his upcoming meeting. When the meeting commences, Lord Asriel shows the resident scholars and the master pictures of the Aurora Borealis (the ‘Northern Lights’ of the title) and the mysterious elementary particles called Dust. Shortly after, Lord Asriel travels to the Arctic North, and Lyra continues her studies at the college.
After the meeting, the master and the librarian discuss Lord Asriel’s journey to the north and allude to another invisible and untouchable world.
When “the Gobblers,” who have become a recent urban legend, kidnap her friend Roger, a kitchen boy from the college, Lyra vows to rescue him. But instead an important visitor, a woman named Mrs. Marisa Coulter (who has already been revealed to the reader to be leading the Gobblers), offers to take Lyra away from Jordan College to become her apprentice. Lyra assents, but before she leaves, the Master of the college entrusts to her (with the condition that she keep it absolutely secret) a priceless object previously given to the College by Lord Asriel: an alethiometer. Resembling a golden, many-handed pocket-watch, it can answer any question asked by a skilled user. Although presently unable to read or understand its complex symbols, Lyra takes it with her to Mrs. Coulter’s flat. Soon after, Lyra becomes suspicious of Mrs. Coulter’s motives when her dæmon searches Lyra’s room for the alethiometer.
At a cocktail party hosted by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra discovers by eavesdropping that Mrs. Coulter heads an organization known as the “General Oblation Board” and that this board is in fact, the “Gobblers” who have been kidnapping children. Horrified, Lyra flees Mrs. Coulter’s flat during the party.
While escaping from the “Gobblers,” Lyra is rescued by the Gyptians (nomadic, canal-boat-dwelling people) who afterwards reveal that Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are Lyra’s father and mother. She also learns that many children like Roger have been disappearing from among the Gyptians, and that the Gyptians are planning an expedition to the north to rescue them. During her time with the Gyptians, Lyra intuitively begins to learn how to operate the alethiometer.
On a stop in Trollesund, Lyra meets a sapient armoured bear called Iorek Byrnison. Iorek is an exiled bear prince who is paid for his work in spirits, a considerably dishonorable job for a panserbjørne. However, the villagers had taken his armour, which is comparable to a dæmon for him, binding him to his work. Lyra uses her alethiometer to aid Iorek in reclaiming his armour, thereby enlisting his aid.
After departure from Trollesund, the Gyptians and Lyra continue north to the destination of Bolvangar, where they believe the Gobblers are keeping the children. On the way, Lyra stops at a village in response to her alethiometer readings, looking for a child. She finds a boy, Tony Makarios, who had been separated from his dæmon, Ratter. Lyra then realizes that “intercision” carried out by the Gobblers is actually a process that severs the tie that binds children to their dæmons, effectively removing their soul. Tony dies within the day, and the group continues on after burning the body.
Soon after, Lyra is captured by a party of hunters who take her to an experimentation facility in Bolvangar, where she discovers that the children are being subjected to experimental intercision. Inside, she locates Roger and devises an escape plan. She is caught spying on Ms. Coulter and a group of workers at the facility, and narrowly escapes suffering the intercision process herself; she is rescued, unfortunately, by Mrs. Coulter, who tries to take the alethiometer. Lyra escapes the clutches of Ms. Coulter once again. Lyra leads the other children from the facility and is rescued by Lee Scoresby in his hydrogen balloon. Iorek Byrnison and a clan of witches friendly with the Gyptians also aid in rescuing the children by fighting the guards of Bolvangar.
Having found Roger, Lyra now is determined to deliver the alethiometer to Lord Asriel, believing that he needs it for his purposes. He is imprisoned at Svalbard, the armoured bears’ fortress, because the church opposes his experiments on Dust. As they travel to Svalbard, bat-like cliff ghasts attack the balloon; Lyra is thrown out but lands safely, only to be captured by the armoured bears. She tricks the usurping bear-king, Iofur Raknison, into fighting Iorek Byrnison, who regains his throne. Thereafter, she travels to Lord Asriel’s cabin, accompanied by Iorek and Roger.
Despite being imprisoned, Lord Asriel has become so influential that he has accumulated the necessary equipment to continue his experiments on Dust. After explaining to Lyra the nature of Dust, an emanation from another world, and the existence of parallel universes, he departs, taking Roger and much scientific equipment. Lyra pursues them, having discovered that she has indeed brought her father what he wanted, though not in the way she thought. It was not the alethiometer he needed, but Roger: the severing of the child-dæmon tie releases an enormous amount of energy, which Lord Asriel needs to complete his task. Roger dies when Lord Asriel separates him from his dæmon, and with the enormous energy released — combined with his specialized equipment — Lord Asriel is able to tear a hole through the sky into a parallel world. Lord Asriel offers to bring Ms. Coulter, who had come by means of her zeppelin, with him, but she declines. Lord Asriel walks through into the new world alone. On Pantalaimon’s advice, Lyra follows. This concludes the first novel, with the trilogy continuing in the next book, The Subtle Knife.

Now how does this relate to Lost?
Well, there’s that wonky compass, that passed from Locke to Richard to Locke and so on and so on.
Then there’s that knife:
I have a quick question, remember when Richard goes to see a very young Locke and Locke chooses the knife (I guess all his life he has desperately tried to be the Hunter), is that the same knife that MIB gives to Ben to stab Jacob? And did anyone notice that he picked up the knife, wiped off the blood on a piece of Jacob’s tapestry and put it in his pocket? What could that mean?
As for The Amber Spyglass
While it isn’t amber in color, Jacob’s lighthouse I my opinon could be Lost’s version.

I just thought I would throw this out there since ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ has gotten a mention.
I mean it does kind of have a parrellel universe and for all we know, when MIB turns into the smoke monster it could represent his daemon in the form of all his pent up anger and blackened heart.