Questions tagged [identification-request]
Questions asking for identification of a literary work (story, novel, poem, play, etc) 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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Story where a guy gets an email where if he agrees to go out and buy specific computers and store them in the attic then he'll get paid lots of money
I was talking with someone today and it reminded me of a story I read over 20 years ago. I can't remember if it was stand-alone or a short story. I know I read the book before the year 2000, so ...
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1
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140
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Weird kids' keyhole popup book?
There was a book when I was a kid that I had. It must have been an early 2000s or a 90s book. It was about looking through this keyhole. I remember one page being peeking through the blinds to see ...
- 5,151
2
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1
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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", ...
- 5,151
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2
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A pair of children decide that their neighbor is a witch and convince her to try flying
I believe I checked this out from our library in Kentucky somewhere between 1986 and 1995. I remember it as a short book, less than a hundred pages, maybe less than thirty. A pair of children (at ...
- 10.6k
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43
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Manga about a character who gets lost in the woods, wanders around and finds this small shack with a young male hermit
I remember reading a few chapters of a Japanese manga about 3 years ago, but my memory of it is very hazy. The story was not current and had been in production for several years already. If I had to ...
- 1,914
6
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1
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63
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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 ...
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2
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80s? Infected Man trapped in an Office tower with people trying to kill him
This was a paperback, probably from the 80s. The cover may have had the exterior view of an office tower (~20 floors) with a man suspended on a rope swinging outside.
The protagonist goes to his ...
- 5,151
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58
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Book about a white mother who kills her black son (with her other white son)
I remember reading this perhaps during elementary school.
While this wasn't the entire plot of the book, one of its major points was a mother who slept with a black man and had a black son. She and ...
- 2,773
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1
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Seeking story about chess in Soviet Union, probably Playboy c.1980?
I actually read some girlie mags for the stories growing up...this was probably in Playboy, with a lower chance of it being from Penthouse. A Soviet apparatchik has commissioned a ceremonial chess set ...
- 3,042
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Children's song about the onomatopoeia of the wind
When I was a young child (probably somewhere between 1985 to 1995), I remember watching a cartoon involving anthropomorphic animals (I don't remember which animals other than that I think one was a ...
- 10.6k
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1
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124
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Dark story about two brothers surviving in the woods; they both die
I’m trying to find the title of a book I read as a kid, borrowed from a library in the late 1970s. It was a fairly dark story about two brothers left to fend for themselves after losing their ...
- 10.6k
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Afrikaans kids' book about an abducted girl
I'm looking for help on finding a book that I read in Afrikaans around, a short (20-30 pages) hardcover kids' book. I got it from my grandparents 2012-2013. It's about a girl, 6-10 years old, white ...
- 27.6k
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1
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Christian children's book about journey through enchanted forest guided by king's music
I need help identifying a children's book I remember reading years ago.
Plot: the king announces a contest for his daughter's hand in marriage. The first person to pass through the enchanted forest ...
- 788
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votes
1
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685
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Racist/anti-racist story about how bones are indistinguishable after death
I don't remember much about this story, but it's set a couple of hundred years ago. Several white men are attacked by several black natives. One of the natives kills one of the white men, but is ...
- 3,042
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1
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What was the case where Sherlock answers Watson's private thoughts?
I recall a Sherlock Holmes mystery where the detective and his assistant are in their apartment and Watson is working over some decision that he has to make. Suddenly Holmes pipes in to give his ...
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In what novel does the surname Deifik appear?
Norbert Pearlroth is famous for being the head researcher for Ripley's Believe It or Not, but he also wrote a column on Jewish Surnames, and when he was asked about the surname "Deifik", he ...
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Boy keeps breaking pocket watch fighting, opts to pay watchmaker himself rather than ask mother
I read a short story in English circa 1980-85 (although it may have been published much earlier) about a boy who carries an expensive pocket watch (perhaps inherited) but keeps getting in schoolyard ...
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1990s end of the world book
I read this book in the 90s about the end of the world relating to a comet or asteroid hitting the earth. First chapter was in an observatory I think and next chapter in the desert? Not much to go on ...
- 9,794
2
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1
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90
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YA novel set in London featuring a teenage Sherlock wannabe
I'm looking for a novel I owned and read in the 1980s. Here's the little I can remember about it:
The main character is a teenage boy who has studied the Sherlock Holmes books and tries to follow the ...
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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 ...
- 2,773
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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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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 ...
- 9,794
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0
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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 ...
- 11.8k
6
votes
1
answer
994
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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 ...
- 4,753
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2
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3k
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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 ...
- 11.8k
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1
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147
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Poet who asserted that poets lack personality and collect objects to give them one
In about the mid-90s I read part of a book of literary criticism by a poet (so focused mainly on poetry and poetic theory) where he said that poets lack a personality and often collect trinkets to ...
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1
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School story involving a new computer, novel educational practices, and a secret society
This is a children's chapter book or possibly YA novel that I read in English in the USA around 1990. I read a few books of this general style, so I'm hoping that I am not conflating multiple books.
...
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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
answer
66
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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 ...
- 27.6k
6
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1
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Book involving the president-elect dying in a horse accident and electoral college shenanigans
I think I read this one in early 2000. It was a novel length hardback, I think with a white cover. The President-Elect has won the election and is riding a horse in some parade when it gets spooked. ...
- 10.6k
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1
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A Regency era novel on Wattpad about a purple-eyed girl (dressed up as a boy) working as a personal valet for a lord (male lead)
It starts with the girl working in a fake antiquity-making factory where she drops a large and heavy vase, shattering it. She had a heavy labour kind of work. It was a very dreary setting. Workers ...
- 72.6k
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0
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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 ...
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1
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Book about a runaway kid who lives in a hollow tree
I found a survival-story chapter book in the library. I read the book, and loved it. Now I've moved, and the library is hours away and I can't remember the name of the book. I remember the following ...
- 10.6k
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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, ...
- 10.6k
4
votes
1
answer
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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 ...
- 72.6k
3
votes
1
answer
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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 ...
- 72.6k
3
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1
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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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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 ...
- 72.6k
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0
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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....
- 72.6k
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1
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Children's book about a disturbed adopted sister from Vietnam
It was written sometime in the 80s. It was a large but slim hardcover book. It was about a girl whose parents adopted a girl from an orphanage in Vietnam a few years after the war ended.
The adoptee ...
- 9,794
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0
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90
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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 ...
- 9,794
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0
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80
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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 ...
- 9,794
6
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1
answer
482
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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 ...
- 9,794
3
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1
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157
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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 ...
- 313
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0
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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 ...
- 10.6k
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0
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50
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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 ...
- 331
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votes
1
answer
95
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Novel in which a hired killer muses about the existence of a legendary killer who operates only by accidents, followed by a short chapter of that man
I think I read this as an ebook in English, within the last few years. The main character (not the only perspective character as I recall it) is a hired killer of some renown, and he was idly musing ...
- 10.6k
3
votes
0
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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 ...
13
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1
answer
4k
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What is the name of a short story where a computer insists 2+2 is 5?
Many years ago in a US middle school, in an honors literature class we read a short story in English that has stuck with me since and I haven't been able to find it.
Roughly:
someone creates a ...
- 11.8k
1
vote
2
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147
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Children's book: "Augmenter" is a key concept
I read this book about 5 years ago (2017), in my fourth grade Southern California classroom (aged 9 to 10). I remember the word “Augmenter” being what the story was mainly about. I think some people ...
- 10.6k