Wow...Why did they put this book in there?  Hmmm....

 This entry will focus on two books/manuscripts we saw.  Once again, this will turn into a lengthy entry, but stay with me.

1.  An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge

This is the book Locke had in the hatch.  I read this story years ago in college, and it has a very interesting ending...especially put into the perspective of the Lost survivors.  Here's a short excerp of the beginning (http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-owlcreekbridge/sum.html)

"Upon a railroad bridge in Alabama, a man is waiting to be hanged. His hands are tied behind his back, and a rope encircles his neck. He stands upon a platform constructed of loose boards. Members of the Federal Army—the Union Army during the Civil War—are also on the bridge. Some are completing the preparations and some are guarding the bridge. The man about to be hanged, Peyton Farquhar, is a civilian.

On one side of the stream is a forest, on the other a fort. Halfway between the bridge and the fort stand a line of soldiers, all armed. When the soldiers finish their preparations, they move off of the bridge. A sergeant stands at the opposite end of the same board as Farquhar. At the signal from his captain, he will step off the board. The board will tilt down, and Farquhar will fall through the railway ties.

Farquhar closes his eyes to think of his family but he is distracted by a sharp, rhythmic sound." 

I'll leave out most of the details, but basically, Farquhar is about to be hung but somehow manages to escape.  He swims through rivers, runs through the forest, etc.  But here's the interesting part of that story...All of a sudden as he has a seering pain in his neck.  The whole thing had been in his imagination.  The "rhythmic sound" was the sound of himself swinging back and forth from the rope.  He is dead.  The whole "escape" had taken place in his head in the last moments of his life while he was hanging.

2. Bad Twin by Gary Troup

This is the manuscript Hurley was reading at the end.  According to http://www.greatlink.org/dcisV2.asp?url=http://www.greatlink.org/shownewsitem.asp?item=5012, "ABC's hit SF series Lost will spin off a book based on a supposed "found manuscript" by a character who didn't survive the crash of Oceanic flight 815, Variety reported. The character, Gary Troup, figures in upcoming episodes of the series.

Troup's supposed novel will be published by ABC sister company Hyperion Books. Hyperion has commissioned a novel by a "well-known" mystery writer—it's not saying who—that supposedly constitutes the book. In the past, ABC/Hyperion hired best-selling mystery novelist Ridley Pearson to ghost-write The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, a prequel companion book to the 2002 Stephen King miniseries Rose Red.

Troup's book will be marketed as the work of an author who "delivered [it] to Hyperion just days before [he] boarded Oceanic flight 815."

The novel, Bad Twin, is a private-eye procedural involving a wealthy heir's search for his nefarious brother. It will be released this spring in conjunction with the network's related episodes, the trade paper reported."

Sorry such a long entry...thanks for sticking with me here!