Questions tagged [identification-request]
Questions asking for identification of a story, book, or author, based on descriptive details provided within the question. Please be thorough and provide ALL of the details that you can remember when using this tag. (For questions seeking the original source of a known quote, use the [quote-source] tag instead.)
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A Supernatural or Horror Novel set in a Vast Mansion
I looked at a paperback copy of this novel in a supermarket in about the 1980s.
The title may have been The Lodge, or something similar. There may have been a group of supernatural investigators ...
- 270
2
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0
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27
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Book about 13 year old befriending computer hacker
I am trying to find the title of a novel I read in grade school back in either 2001 or 2002. The book is about a 13 year old boy who befriends an older man that happens to be a computer hacker. Here ...
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21
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TTRPG or Video Games history book on itch.io for >=$25 Canadian Dollars and was promoted by either Kotaku or Polygon, about 3 months ago
I've been looking through my internet history of itch.io sites looking for this book, because I didn't buy it, but I can't find anything that fits, even though I have history for this whole year.
It ...
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0
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BL manga about a boy exiled from his family, who goes to school in the hopes of getting back in
I was trying to find a yaoi manga that I know is on mangago but I didn't save the name. All I remember is that it had less than 10 chapters. Summary is that a boy got exiled from his family by his ...
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30
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Looking for book written by imprisoned Chinese author, first page setting is on a train
I am looking for the book title of a recently translated book by a Chinese author, who wrote the notes for the book while she was imprisoned in China.
The contents seemed to be a light novel, and the ...
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2
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0
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23
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Where's Waldo-style picture book about a field trip time traveling to Ancient Egypt
I read this book probably in the 1999-2001 range, as a library book. The text was in English; this was in the state of Ohio in the US. I don't recall the particular copy having notable wear or fading ...
6
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1
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967
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Fantasy children's story where they suspect someone is a vampire
I'm 38 and read this probably between 1993-1997.... when I was between 8-12 years old. I don't think it was a new book at that time.
It was about a young boy and girl who auditioned for a local play ...
Nik
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2
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Book of short stories I read as a kid; one story about a starving girl, one about a boy who stays forever young
I can remember two short stories, and while I am not entirely sure if they're from the same book, I would hugely appreciate finding either.
The first story I remember reading about was about a girl ...
- 103
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0
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44
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Horror story from an Alfred Hitchcock anthology
I recall reading a horror story about some type of mysterious thing in a swimming pool that menaced the main character. I can’t remember a lot of detail and not even sure I have the plot right but I ...
7
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1
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1k
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Book about a girl who finds out she's adopted
I'm looking for a book about a girl who plays the drums and finds out she's adopted. She sets out to find her birth mom and realizes her dad is also a musician and that she was conceived during a ...
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1
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412
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Identify a cookbook with a Deputy preparing a whole camel
I recently came across this photo of an interesting recipe in preparing "Stuffed Camel"...
Stuffed Camel
1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
...
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3
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1
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60
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Retrieving Beckman (1982) rendering of the Zoroastrian Avesta
I'm currently reading Drakon by Ogden which is a monograph on serpent cults and mythological accounts of serpent-related happenings in ancient Greece. In the introduction, Ogden briefly overviews ...
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0
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29
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Webcomic that has a probably minor character girl that writes fanfiction just about minor characters
I read some fiction on the internet that had a minor character girl who talked aloud to someone about how they flesh out the backstories of really minor characters, like the ones that say Welcome To ...
- 580
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1
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69
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Identifying book about a boy forced to destroy a Holocaust survivor's wooden model
Book was set in the 1950s about a boy working for a racist store owner. The main character's brother was killed in a hit-and-run which sent his father into a deep depression. The store owner he works ...
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1
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64
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Dinosaur story for children
I'm hoping to identify a short dinosaur picturebook for children that would have been available by around 1994 (but was probably written earlier than that). The audiotape read-along version included ...
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0
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Identify short story about a despairing man who finds his lack of fear of death elates him in a rescue attempt on a snowy mountain
The protagonist despairs, perhaps after a war. He contemplates suicide when he is called to rescue a man stuck out on a snowy mountain. The phrase that occurs to me is "The Razor's Edge", ...
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1
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Book where the brutal slaying of an old woman turns out to be the result of a counterfeit quilt scheme
I have vague memories of reading this book while on the train in New Jersey, which would put my reading of it around 2007-2010. The book started with someone breaking into the house of an old woman, ...
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1
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105
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What is this famous ending of a poem/speech?
I can't remember this 1-2 English sentence extract, but here are the things I can remember it's similar to. I'm pretty sure I read it.
It has something like an a, x, b, y structure but doesn't ...
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47
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Short story with a man who keeps passing out due to his starched collar poking his neck
Weird isolated memory, but I was recently at our church, and when I turned my head, the collar put pressure on the side of my neck, which suddenly reminded me of a short story I read, probably in the ...
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49
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Help find medieval archer meeting triceratops
I remember as a child seeing an illustration in a book my brother was reading where an archer was pointing a bow at a triceratops but refused to kill it because it might have been the last of its kind....
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0
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53
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Help finding a children's book about giants
A fully drawn book from the 90s in the UK.
It was a book about giants. It was, to me, the other giants story alongside BFG. Definitely a different style, and theme. I remember scenes in the book ...
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0
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82
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Help finding a children's book about a pet dragon who eats baked beans from a skip
A fully drawn book from the 90s in the UK.
It is about someone who had a pet dragon (iirc), and how it needed to eat a whole skip's worth of baked beans and other foods each night. I think it was ...
- 131
6
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1
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468
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Help me find a book about a boy and a drawing bug
My teacher read me this book sometime between 2012-2016. The book is about a bug (I'm pretty sure it's a beetle) who is able to draw amazing pictures. He lives in a boy's room and the boy's mom thinks ...
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0
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47
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Looking for a story quote about "writers license"
I don't remember the author, but Kishon and Hasek would be my prime usual suspects. (Mainly since I surely read the short story a long time ago - could be 50 years ago when I was a kid - and these two ...
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0
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81
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Looking for the name of a book from my childhood, that contains multiple stories
I'm looking for the name of a children's book. Me and my sister were given it back in about 1993 by a relative who passed away too long ago so we have no way of asking them, and we ended up losing it ...
0
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0
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114
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Children’s book about a tadpole and a rude fish
I’m looking for the name of the children’s book. It had a green cover and must have been around in the 90s/2000s. I can’t remember a huge amount about it, I but vaguely remember a rude fish saying ‘...
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4
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1
answer
96
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Looking for a horror story read in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology
I'm looking for a short story where the narrator has to travel a long way, probably for work, and has to stop overnight in a village he doesn't know. He is stopped by the police for a trivial reason, ...
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0
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37
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Children book about a boy lost in the forest during a snow storm
I don’t remember much about the book, but the illustrations where very pretty, they looked like they were painted by aquarela.
If I ain’t wrong the story was about a boy that got lost in a forest ...
- 11
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1
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72
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Looking for a 1950's aviation novel set in England
I would like to find the title or author of a novel that I read circa 1977, by either an American or English author.
Set in England, in the fifties or very early sixties, it describes a love affair ...
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0
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47
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Children's book with an episode of children riding wooden "tanks" down the sides of a ravine and smashing into each other
I read this book sometime between 1990 and 1995. I don't remember anything about the plot, characters, cover, etc. -- but I do remember the following episode.
The children made small wooden carts that ...
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0
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28
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Help identifying children’s book about a chaotic family Halloween and/or thanksgiving
I have a vivid recollection of reading a book about Halloween and/or thanksgiving. My primary recollection is that the book was similar in style to Beverly Cleary, but I don’t believe she was the ...
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1
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76
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Book which mixes a story about a young girl at birthdays and helpful ideas for planning birthdays
When I was younger my mum gave me a children’s book about birthdays. I've tried searching for the specifics I remember but no luck yet, hoping someone can help. I think it was published in the 80’s ...
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1
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1k
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Story about a community of rats that create art and another that only works and eventually all rats give up on art?
I remember reading sometime somewhere this story:
On an island lived two communities of rats. One created art and the other only worked. The rats which only worked were better at resource acquisition ...
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0
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45
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Book featuring an airplane sheet-plated with gold and an expedition to Africa to get it?
I didn't read the book itself, but listened to it being read in a series of radio auditions, in the end of 1980s. The book was in Polish translation, or, possibly, it was by Polish author.
More ...
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Seeking circular novel, begins & ends with man waking from a dream
I just heard this mentioned on a podcast, but then couldn't remember which one, and can't remember the title either! But I think it was a 3-4 word title with relatively simple, common, monosyllabic ...
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0
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What is the origin of the story about Scent, Touch, Sound, Taste and Vision.?
I came across the story in a movie called See starring Jason Momoa. The story is about four brothers and sisters (Scent, Touch, Sound and Taste) and later on Vision came along and said he was their ...
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0
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Long essay / short booklet (~10,000 words?) memoir of a husband caring for his wife dying from cancer
I volunteer in end-of-life care among the materially disadvantaged in India. About 2 years ago, I had come across a long essay / short booklet (~10,000 words?) written by a person who was caring for ...
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1
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Who wrote the short story "Quietly"?
About 20 yrs ago I briefly possessed a collection of science fiction short stories by various authors.
It began with a story titled Quietly.
It was about a girl named Quietly who is being raised by ...
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0
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Bizarre early 1970's children's picture book about life in prison
My friends look at me askance when I tell them about this surreal children's picture book I read in a US public library about 1975.
A man (who my brain insists on identifying with Ned Riddle's ...
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0
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43
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Name of old book with two kids, treasure hunt, and elderly woman
My dad loves reading old kids/young adult books to his grandchildren. For years he's been trying to figure out the name of a book that he read long ago, but he's been unable to. I'm hoping that ...
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Can't remember book title: a journalist converses with a death row convict [duplicate]
I'm searching for the title of a book, my memories are quite hazy, very vague, as I read it a few years back. The plot goes something like this: a journalist converses with a death row convict, and ...
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Book (possibly part of a series) about a martial arts school, included a section with a punch thrown with a butterfly in the hand
I read this as a paperback in the mid 1990s in English, probably between 200 and 300 pages. My brain is associating the book with various TSR series I read at the time, although that might just be a ...
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2
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107
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Difference between two similarly-named books - 'The Bear Who Wanted to [Be|Stay] a Bear'
My daughter told me she wants to read the book The Bear Who Wanted to Stay a Bear by Jörg Steiner with me, probably after reading it at school. Google yields search results for these differently-but-...
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Where did Steinbeck write about the smoke stacks at Moss Landing?
I was at Elkhorn Slough today, and the captain of the boat I was on said that the "smoke stacks" (or whatever they are now called) were built in the 1950s or 1960s. But I recall John ...
5
votes
1
answer
108
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Graphic novel about a man and a dog talking about philosophical topics and going on adventures
I read this graphic novel a few years ago when I was in elementary school, I remember very little of it so it might be difficult.
The book is a collection of individual comics, the stories in each ...
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1
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62
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Children's book about a magic ointment that brings inanimate objects to life
I am trying to find the title of a children's book where a magic ointment was rubbed on inanimate objects (chairs, table etc.) bringing them to life.
I read this book in the mid to late 1970s. Would ...
5
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1
answer
76
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Trying to find a book about sharing kingship that I read as a child, likely from the 1980s
I read a book as a child. I don't remember what age I was, so let's put 1990 as the upper end of the publication date. Here is what I remember:
Three children are imprisoned in a kingdom run by ...
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1
answer
136
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A short story about artificial intelligence written by an author from Russia or Poland?
I once read an interesting short story about the possibility of a set of intelligent machines creating philosophy. Unfortunately I can't find the book that contains this short story. All I can ...
- 131
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2
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60
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A song in Pierre Martin's "Madame le Commissaire"
In the book "Madame le Commissaire" by Pierre Martin, Isabelle has dinner with her friends.
A song by Edith Piaf plays in the background and Isabelle thinks about the meaning of the lyrics.
...
- 11
8
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1
answer
63
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A girl builds fairy houses to escape her home life
I read this book in the mid-2000s, maybe 2006?, in the USA. It was in English, and it was a paperback middle-grade chapter book, maybe 200 pages long.
The main character is a girl who learns to build ...
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