1. VALIS - Phillip K. Dick. This is perhaps the most 'in your face' appearance of a book on LOST to date. In one episode, Locke serves to it Ben with his breakfast. Ben smirks and says 'he's already read it'. Locke responds that he should 'read it again -- there might be something you missed'.

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/Image/LOST/lostegg-valis.jpg

In the very next episode, Ben is shown reading the book, deeply engrossed.

So what does this mean?

In VALIS, the main character suffers hallucinations (or insight) that the modern world is in some way counterfeit, and that it is really still the times of the Roman Empire. The theme of 'false time' is raised again and again.

In LOST, the Island seems to be in some sort of 'time bubble', much as the 'real world' seem to be in VALIS. There is a very well thought out theory that the Island functions as a species of time machine. (This theory is explained in detail here: http://www.timelooptheory.com/the_timeline.htm)

The pushing of the button every 108 minutes used to send the Island back in time, resetting the 108 minute cycle. Thus, inhabitants relive the same 108 minutes in 2004 again and again. (However, since the hatch was blown up, and nobody is pushing the button, the Island is once again moving forward in time, albeit still inside a time-bubble where it is still 2004).

2. The Invention of Morel
In this book, there is an Island also. A convict arrives, and is surprised to see a resort where the same people re-live the same week again and again. They do not talk to the convict; he seems to be invisible. It turns out that a 'reality recording machine' is in operation on the Island -- the people it shows are actual 'inside', immortal, but the only hitch is they must relive the same week over and over -- forever.

Again, we have a theme of a 'false reality' and a 'time loop' or bubble of some sort in operation.

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k284/whitebrowgigs/Lost/4x04_Books-thumb-470x528.jpg

Last, we have Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. In this book, the main character, Kilgore Trout, becomes 'unstuck in time'. His consciousness leaps from year to year, but he always stays in his own body (so one moment he is 50, the next 22, the next 33.) This is very similar to the way LOST stories always have two storylines -- one in the 'present' and one in the past (or future, sometimes) -- that weave together. (This is the 'Highlander method' of storytelling :) )

http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/images/slaughterhouse5.jpg
Source(s):
http://www.timelooptheory.com/the_timeline.htm

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