S.earch Book 5

*** Update *** The 5th book has been found !

It was indeed in a Little Free Library cabinet and @enaxor tweeted the picture of it.

The LFL box was located between SE Kelly St & SE Tibbitts St on 31st Avenue, the clues pointed to an area between Franklyn St and Brooklyn St, and East of SE 28th Ave, West of SE 33rd Ave, which I have tried to show on this map.

The hunt has started.

This quote we have seen Doug Dorst tweet before, The Who Is Straka blog has an article that mentions it's first appearance.

Clue 2

Possibly referring to Powells City Of Books

Clue 3

Possibly leading to Bushell & Peck Bakeshop

Also possibly Mose code for SE ? - Confirmed

Clue 4

Secret for a Nightingale book by Victoria Holt

Catherine Called Birdy book by Karen Cushmen

Fresh Ways with Poultry - Anonymous author ?

Refers to the books in the LFL cabinet where S. was located

Clue 5

C Notes refers to Franklyn i.e. anything above (North of) Franklyn St.

Nets refers to the Brooklyn Nets team, and means anything below (South of) Brooklyn St.

Between walls means between the two Avenues, which are described by the next two clues.

Clue 6

Book of Job CHAPTER 28

Refers to 28th Avenue

Clue 7

Book of Daniel Chapter 8 VERSE 33

Refers to 33rd Avenue

Clue 8

Simple the word "Little" as part of the Little Free Libraries location

Clue 9

A Free album cover

Second part of the Little Free Libraries location

Clue 10

Probably referencing Little Free Library - confirmed

S.earch Book 4

*** UPDATE *** Book 4 has been found by Jo Garfein

These are the clues for book 4 which is located in San Francisco.

To our knowledge this book has not been found yet so there may be time to decode and still find the hidden book.

In true Straka code style the numbers relate to the page / word that we need in his own book "Alive in Necropolis" that is mentioned in the first tweet relating to this hunt. @MJHASOWLEYES and @ObFuSc8 have partialy decode this to -

____ ____ CROSS STREET ____ ____ ____ SEVENTY NINE BOOKS ____

However they don't have the actual book, so can't find the results online and can't fill in some of the missing words, so if you have the actual book please let us know.

*** UPDATE *** - I missed a post by @ObFuSc8 and the clues were solved, quite different to the partial decoding above with the real book the final solution is -

Two Sisters Bar and Books 579 Hayes St, Middle Shelf

S.earch Book 3

I was out and about during this search, but I did my bit while sitting in a pub in England, directing a Scotsman and a local lady to a location in LA !

The book was found by Paul and Alice, and yes Paul is the same person that found the first book !

The clues were all pictures this time, and I have posted them all below, when we examined them all they turned out to be all names of board games of one sort or another.

That pointed us at Game Haus Cafe in LA where the book was found in the Mystery Express board game box.

S.earch Book 2

*** UPDATE *** After a lot of headscratching and pondering book 2 was found by Joseph Tavano

I have updated the clue information below to show how I think it's location was worked out.

We are off again, this time the search area is Boston.

@MyTheseus has suggested that this might point to the City of Squares in Boston otherwise known as Cambridge

Second clue

Third clue.

Picture of Blaise de Vigenère which leads us to the Vigenère cipher to decode the letters in the second clue, using Monkey as the keyword gives us - "Home of the engineers"

Clue four

Possibly relating to Wavy Gravy the Hippie Clown

If you rake WAVY GRAVY and reverse it it to GRAVY WAVY, spend the two 5's i.e. remove the roman numeral number 5 (V's) from the name you get GRAY WAY which is a street on the MIT campus.

The L. in this clue refers to building 50 (Roman numeral again).

So looking at the map above the building is the Walker Memorial building.

Possibly relating to the Castor Genus of Beaver, as the Engineers team mascot is Tim the Beaver

Confirmed, just inside the building is a mosaic of Tim the Beaver.

A poem by Ogden Nash

The full poem is -

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

The book was hidden in an old Flue just inside the building.

S.earch Book 1

*** Update *** We have a winner !

Purely by chance a good friend of SFiles22, and a big S. Doug Dorst and JJ Abrams fan, happened to be in New York when the first clues were posted, collectively we managed to steer him in the right direction and after overcoming a little issue that the venue with the book in was closed Paul found the book !

Paul tweeted a couple of pictures of the location and the book and was able to walk away with his prize, he has said that he will donate the prize to the next Cancer Gets LOST auction, so look out for it then.

I have updated the clue descriptions below to give more information on their meanings

Already we have our first clue for a book in New York City.

Anyone think they know where it is get in touch in the comments or via Twitter

This clue is a map of a part of Brooklyn.

Second clue

This pointed us to a possible location on or near water, and obviously a bar of some description.

Third clue.

This is a picture of Frederick Exley he is an American author, who happened to have a bar named after him in Brooklyn that is located on the first clue map (Google Map) the location is near the Williamsburg Bridge and East river

Maybe a reflection of the location that S. first washes up on shore in Straka's last work.

Let the S.earch begin!

Just when you thought it was safe to relax for the holidays a new challenge arrives.

Watch the video below and then let us know what you think in the comments.

Doug Dorst - Kansas City Library 8th May

The Kansas City Library are hosting an event with Doug Dorst.

It will be a conversation with Kaite Stover, the Library's director of readers' services.

The event will be available via YouTube for everyone to watch and starts at 6:30pm(CST).

You can follow the Kansas City Library (@KCLibrary) and Katie Stover (@MarianLiberr) on twitter for more updates and to see some of the questions people have already sent in for this event.

** Update **

Now the event has taken place, the full video is available to watch again, have a look at around the 58 minute mark and we get a little mention :-)

Eric on a Mission ?

There has been a marked increase in chatter between the Jen and Eriic twitter accounts today (@EricHusch and @JenTheUndergrad

Eric is in NY and last night found this page of Ship of Theseus in his pocket, the writing on it says "Flushing Meadows 19:00 30th", for which we are assuming is the 30th of April.

It is definitely worth keeping an eye out on the twitter accounts to see what is happening.

There is a Storify link for all the recent tweets provided by @MyTheseus

(S)pecial Delivery

A little while ago Mulholland Books announced that there were making a reading group kit available to help you and your friends discuss S.

We have heard of a few kits arriving, but now we have one of our own.

The first thing to note is a letter from J.W. Dominguez who is the mysterious author of the Eotvoswheel.com website which has a large amount of information on V M Straka and who the potential candidates of Straka's identity may be.

Speaking of the website, part of it is reproduced in a special dossier, the front page of which is a reproduction of the Ship of Theseus cover (first picture).

The letter goes on to say there are instructions for solving a playfair cipher, which slightly disappointingly is the same cipher used for the Mulholland Books competition around the time that S. was launched, but it is a good one for people that haven't seen it yet.

Thee are a couple of erasable coloured pencils so that you can add your own notes to Jen and Eric's

There is also, as is becoming "the tradition" with S., a postcard, of Brazil. The postcard has a custom 'S' stamp which is a very nice touch.

Interestingly other people who have received the kit have reported that they received different postcards, and the original image of the kit published to advertise it shows a different card again.

However all the different cards seem to be images of Rio de Janeiro, which in itself may be significant.

The letter from J.W. Dominguez says "we encourage you to write and mail a postcard to Straka's translator, F. X. Calderia." The letter also says they will collect the cards and post them online.

I don't think this will be restricted to just the cards sent out in the kits, so if you can send a postcard of your own to the address in the picture I think it would be a great idea.

The final part of the kit is a CD with the first Radio Straka transmission on it, we haven't listened yet to see if it is different to the broadcast version on NTS Radio, but if there are any differences we will let you know.

The last paragraph of the letter says "I've never got a straight answer about how Mullholland books got hold of Jen and Eric's annotated copy of Ship of Theseus, but I'm glad they did. It's been a tremendous boon to Straka scholarship. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have"

Just want to finish up by saying what an excellent way of encouraging people to read S. with friends this is and it is great to see that S. has not been just published and forgotten, but is still actively being thought about.