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.)
867
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Short story about trading shares of people as financial instruments
A few years ago I read an excellent short story that I've been looking for ever since. Here's what I can remember: In this story's world it was common for people to sell shares of themselves (or ...
- 131
2
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0
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30
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Book about kid with unhealthy father realtionship
I read a book before a long time ago about a kid (named axel, axis something like that) who was a brilliant young kid attending a school with older people. I don't remember much, except that he ...
- 121
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1
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Pheasant hunting and manual transmission driving
I am looking for a book that I read when I was very young, probably early elementary school in the 90s. I recall it had something to do with pheasant hunting. I think there was an emergency, or the ...
- 83
6
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2
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886
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Publications of Freud's psycho-analysis of Little Red Riding Hood
I have heard that Freud wrote at length on the Grimm Fairy Tale: Little Red Riding Hood, highlighting all the suggestive themes and symbolism and "id-like" interpretations. However, I was ...
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1
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Identify this American novel set in the Great Depression era, perhaps set in Chicago and focused on meat packing?
In school circa mid 1970's I'd read a then-classic novel which I would like to read again if I can identify it.
I believe it was set around the time of the US Great Depression but I don't think it was ...
- 276
2
votes
1
answer
438
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Children’s book with a mouse called Nils
All I can remember is one character, a mouse called Nils. I think he had a sword and was quite daring. And that’s it, I’m afraid- no idea of the plot, setting or any other details.
I probably read it ...
- 31
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0
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31
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Short story about a traveling vampire cage fighter
I remember reading an intriguing story about a vampire fighting in cages across the country, sort of a supernatural MMA. It appeared (I think) online in the magazine Dark Recesses Press in 2008. I've ...
- 11
6
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0
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101
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Story about a candidate who fails an audition because they were volunteering the previous day
Does anyone recognize this story? I think I read it some ~15? years ago and it's probably a classic of some kind, since it was translated. I don't remember the original language, but it was probably a ...
- 533
3
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0
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71
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Book where people in a town commit suicide after a vision of the Virgin Mary [closed]
I'm looking for a book I read years ago but can't remember the title.
It takes place in a town that is maybe French, Italian or Mediterranean.
The town's people regularly commit suicide after a vision ...
- 41
3
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0
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75
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A Book with a Tree and Boy on the Cover
I’m looking for a book I read about 7-4 years ago, and I remember some parts of it very clearly but can’t remember the name or author or anything.
I’m pretty sure it was originally written in English
...
- 31
7
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1
answer
808
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Help finding a book/short story about a man who comes back from the dead and finds himself in a world that's forgotten fear
Back in high school (around the late 2010s) we were given a story to read as part of our English class. I don't remember the name, just the major plot points.
The story begins with the narration of a ...
- 173
2
votes
1
answer
101
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Comedy mystery short story involving an inept detective, stolen diamonds, and a baby's rattle
I remember reading this as a short story in an anthology, probably in the early 1990s. My parents had a lot of books with crime stories in them, as well as humor anthologies, so that unfortunately ...
- 10.3k
2
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0
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81
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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 ...
- 10.3k
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Latin America (Brazil?) short stories. Just recall fragments: A lone traveler
The protagonist, a traveler to some distant town narrating the stories. In some of them, he sees another figure on the horizon, shadowing him. In one of the stories (an early one in the collection) ...
- 111
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0
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46
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Looking for children’s illustrated book about a boy, injured goose, and letting goose return to flock
The Wild Goose Flies is in my memory as the title but that doesn’t bring up anything relevant when I search. The book was published in the 1960’s. The boy made a pen for the goose and nursed it back ...
3
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0
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105
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Book read in 1970’s early 80’s about girl, sent to a house to stay. Tree or water spirits may feature also to do with flooding of stream in garden
I’m looking for a book where a young girl is the main character. She is sent to stay in another house for some reason. There is something about the garden of the house, it may have a stream running ...
- 31
2
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0
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198
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What novel was referenced in the pilot episode of Suits?
This novel is referenced in the pilot of the tv show Suits. However, it was only referenced very quickly and the title of the book wasn't given so hopefully the scene from the episode mirrors the ...
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4
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1
answer
86
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Story about a murder that leads to an execution; turns out to be suicide
I read an English-language story 15-20 years ago (I do not recall how old it was) about a murder, where the killer got caught and executed. After the execution, a video (I think) was released showing ...
- 143
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0
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41
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Picture book about an animal traveling through an abandoned house?
This book was read to me when I was a kid, somewhere between 2003 and 2005. I unfortunately have no idea about the author or when it was released, and can't really recall the cover apart from it being ...
15
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1
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3k
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Story about a man who bets his head but not his neck with the devil
I remember a story about a man who bets "his head" with the devil and loses. I do not remember what the wager actually was. The devil is ready to chop the man's head off with an axe, but the ...
- 253
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0
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77
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What is the name of German-language horror or crime pulp novel series from late 80s/early 90s?
Back in the very early 90s, my father worked in Germany. The previous tenant in his apartment left some 80s/early-90s 7" vinyls, floppy discs and some horror/crime stich-bound short novels. ...
- 11
4
votes
1
answer
59
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Old book: boy and girl co-dreaming serialised on BBC radio
Fantasy book I heard as a BBC radio serialisation when I was a child, c.1970-75, though it was probably much older and had a wartime or even Victorian vibe. I didn't hear all the episodes and never ...
- 143
8
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1
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274
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Short story about chess
In the book The Complete Chess Addict by Mike Fox and Richard James, the following passage appears on page 156.
Alekhine, near the end of his life, lonely and sick, but still world champion, told a ...
- 415
2
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0
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31
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Looking for title of youth book, possibly SBS, ocean going salvage tug, North Atlantic, Argentine
Looking for the name of a book I read as a kid (45-55 years ago). Premise was an Argentine ocean going salvage tug in the Atlantic, finds a drifting unmanned freighter loaded with scrap metal. Some ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
82
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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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0
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41
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Satire of old lady laying flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier, Paris - what is this french short story?
In a german textbook in high school we had a short story the name and author of which I am looking for.
I think the story was written between WWI and WWII or right after WWII. It is about an old lady ...
- 111
11
votes
1
answer
3k
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Dystopian short story read in US high school: boy and man travel through ancient ruins which are actually our modern-day civilisation
I can't remember if the boy and the man are father and son or perhaps teacher and student. I seem to remember that the boy is in training to be a kind of priest, and that this is why he is being shown ...
- 113
3
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1
answer
103
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A company goes bankrupt after adopting "socialist" policies
I think it's a chapter of some book, maybe by Ayn Rand. A company starts implementing near socialist policies, mainly focused on giving their employees what they need instead of what they have earned. ...
- 41
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1
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2k
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Two men traveling through desert with sheep, older one holds water in mouth to reduce thirst and blows tobacco on sheep to remove ticks
This was a fictional story about 2 men travelling through the desert with a herd of sheep.
I remember one of the men was much older and wiser. He knew how to survive in the desert. He explains at one ...
- 91
3
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0
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85
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Comic from an old newspaper about a girl running through a winter forest and collapsing, with the story "continuing"
I'm trying to find a comic that I saw in a newspaper in 2014 or thereabouts (I think it was Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but not sure). I don't remember the issue number, when exactly I saw it, or ...
- 31
1
vote
1
answer
91
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Why is there an earlier book just like The Vanishing Half with a different title and author?
I came across this circumstance purely by chance.
There is a Kindle book with a free sample for downloading titled The Fates of the Twins. The author is listed as Stuart Woods but it is apparently not ...
4
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0
answers
57
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Great Lakes story where fisherman and dog search islands for a show dog
Read this story in the early 70s. Set around the Great Lakes area in the US. A local fisherman and his trusty pet Labrador dog are searching small islands trying to find a famous show winning Labrador ...
- 41
10
votes
1
answer
232
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Science fiction book in which a doctor treats a sociopathic child who killed her brother
This is going to sound like an extremely weird and specific identification request, but the book popped into my head a few days ago and it's become an itch in my brain to remember which book it was. I ...
- 411
2
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0
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48
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A Bengali novel about Cricket
I am trying to find a Bengali novel about cricket. I think I read it in the last 22 years, but it could have been published at the end of last century. As far as I can recall, I think I read it in an ...
- 121
4
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0
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76
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Children’s sci fi novel about young girl who befriends a wheel-shaped alien on its planet
I’m looking for the title of a book I read a book from a library in Kentucky in roughly 1977-78. It’s a chapter book for the roughly 3rd to 5th grade reading level in English. I don’t remember any ...
- 41
3
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2
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125
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Illustrated anthology book of poetry, with one of the poems being about putting too much sugar in a baby's tea?
I was given an illustrated book of lot of individual English poem in the 90s (book could have been older) with 'weird' poems for children. I think the illustrations might have been watercolour, and ...
- 990
10
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2
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140
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Looking for a collection of British medical short stories circa 1950's
Circa 1977 I read a collection of short stories, all with a medical theme and all told from a British doctor’s point of view (this was in a British library). I have often remembered it, but have never ...
- 666
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0
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36
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Killer abducts woman (witness to a killing?). Her attempt to escape from the hotel room is foiled by a door wedge. Ambiguous ending
This may have been a short story in an Alfred Hitchcock story collection, as I read a lot of those as a child. It would have been read prior to 2000, after 1988 or so, since that's when I started ...
- 10.3k
1
vote
1
answer
77
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Thriller novel which opens with an amnesiac child in bloodsoaked shoes emerging from a forest
I only read the first chapter or so of this book (someone else in my cast was reading it, and let me borrow it for a bit) but it stuck in my head. It was around 2008-2010 in New Jersey (possibly ...
- 10.3k
2
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0
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37
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Help finding adventure novel from the 70s or 80s, Operation Tango/Tonga/Tongo?
I'm in Canada, and when I was in elementary school in the early 80's at a french school our little library had a shelf of english books available.
One of these these books was an adventure book for ...
- 121
3
votes
1
answer
90
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Political Sci-Fi book from late 80's or earlier, humans getting involved in Alien tribal war
I read an excellent political novel as a child (or was it a short story?), and I'm looking to find it again for my niece to read.
I may get some details wrong, but I remember there was a small group ...
- 31
4
votes
1
answer
68
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Children's book including Motor-mouth Marcy, Asian immigrant who made MC's Christmas present, and hypnosis for basketball
There is a book my 3rd/4th grade teacher read to the class in the late '80's that I have been wondering about for years. It's possible that I'm combining multiple books in my head, but assuming that ...
- 141
2
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0
answers
47
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80's techno thriller where Soviets have a control room calculating the odds of 'winning' a nuclear war, and automatically launch above a threshold?
The KGB has a plan to explode a nuclear bomb in the Puget Sound that will have a signature similar to what would be in a U.S. nuclear submarine based there, it will appear to be an accident and ...
- 129
2
votes
1
answer
99
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Thriller novel where a mortician pulls rank to tend to a family friend's body, only to uncover a military conspiracy
The novel starts on a plane with, I think, two female characters boarding a commercial plane, I think either to or from Alaska. Something wrong happens (I don't remember if it was a "mechanical ...
- 10.3k
1
vote
1
answer
52
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Trying to find name of book of criticism written by Milan Kundera or eastern European author of similar stature
Approximately 2 decades ago I read a book of criticism, the author of which I believe was Milan Kundera, but when I look at his Wikipedia page I don't find a reasonable match for what I remember of ...
- 539
7
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1
answer
190
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Which Kipling poem is this an allusion to?
My great-grandfather wrote lots of poems, and among them a small verse called "Apologies to Rudyard Kipling". It seems that the verse is a travesty on, or reference to, a Kipling poem, but I ...
- 73
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0
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412
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Does the poem "Once an engine attached to a train..." predate the Railway Series?
As confirmed in interviews with Rev. Awdry, the Railway Series initially grew from a nursery rhyme told to his sick son in 1942, normally called "Down By The Station". This dates in ...
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2
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146
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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 ...
- 51
3
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0
answers
59
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Looking for a short story about a man who made mouse traps
Many years ago I heard on the radio a story about a man who lived in a village where there was a rat infestation. He decides to make a rat trap and it is so good his friends ask for one. Then the ...
- 131
9
votes
1
answer
1k
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Looking for a short story about a painter who is visited by a critic from the future
Here's what I remember:
The protagonist has a friend who is an artist. A man (art critic? art historian? maybe even sociologist?) comes from the future all gushing about how this friend's art is the ...
- 101