UMRA Reads: Lost Horizon by James Hilton

The story follows four Europeans stranded at a Tibetan lamasery for several months after their plane is hijacked and flown into the Himalayas. With time, they learn that not everything is as it seems at this Utopian lamasery. Hilton's magnum opus was a timely novel, written in the wake of WWI and amidst the Depression. It was a much needed escape for all sorts of readers. But more than just an escape, this book is also a careful dissection of Western and Eastern cultures.