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.)
805
questions
3
votes
1
answer
35
views
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 ...
- 129
3
votes
0
answers
101
views
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
0
votes
2
answers
45
views
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
votes
1
answer
53
views
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 ...
- 113
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What book is about a teenage girl who likes fire and has "brown silver and gold" hair?
She lives in some kind of fishing town or port town with evil foster parents who call her a "wharf rat" and plot to frame her for arson. I thought it was called Firestarter but when I search ...
- 61
7
votes
1
answer
253
views
Identification of a short story about a girl who loses a protective talisman (A handkerchief with three spots of her mother's blood on it)
I'm trying to identify a short story or possibly a fairytale contained in a book of short stories, about a girl who went on a long journey and was given several items that she was supposed to take ...
- 371
3
votes
1
answer
89
views
Looking for a modern fairy-tale in which a prince goes on "impossible" quests for a princess, but ends up marrying a witch who helped him
I'm looking for a story (almost certainly a modern author working in a fairy-tale motif, rather than an actual folk tale) in which a prince is given a sequence of "impossible" tasks by a ...
- 214
1
vote
1
answer
60
views
What is the name of a short story about a woman who was listening to the sound of the river?
I want to find the name of a short story and its writer.
The short story is about a woman that her husband has died in sleep.
When the police ask her about her whereabouts at the time of his death, ...
- 13
3
votes
0
answers
42
views
Short Story ID - Man, apparent weakling, impresses macho brothers of gf/fiancé via daring rescues/fights
I'm trying to identify a short story I once read:
Plot Summary
A man is either dating or engaged to a women. Her macho brothers observe his unimpressive appearance and judge him to be a weakling. They ...
- 31
2
votes
0
answers
36
views
A Matt Helm-style action novel with killer turtles?
I have vague memories from before the year 2000, of reading a paperback novel, perhaps a serial. It was about a super-spy, detective, or secret agent. It was more in the style of "Matt Helm" ...
- 21
4
votes
1
answer
94
views
A bank audit reveals embezzlement when money comes up $5 off (over?)
I'd swear it's O. Henry, but all I'm getting is his real life embezzlement.
In a small town bank, an audit turns up a small ($5?) discrepancy, which eventually leads to discovering that one of the ...
- 9,935
10
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Please identify the name and author of a short story about forbidden clocks
I read that a long time ago, don't remember many details. It was a short story written in English. About a city where clocks were forbidden. Workers in the city have wristbands with different colours ...
- 103
2
votes
1
answer
40
views
Looking for a wattpad book (Thorned Gods?) about a girl with ghostly wolf. She can change into a Wyrm
I read this book maybe 4-5 yrs ago (no more than seven) on Wattpad. It was the first part. (that site has atrocious search & find.)
It was titled 'Thorned Gods'? It was fiction/magic set in the ...
- 33
1
vote
0
answers
33
views
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 ...
- 33
2
votes
1
answer
51
views
Dystopian New Zealand YA novel where teenagers are kidnapped by the car they were trying to steal and taken to an organ theft ring
I am looking for a YA horror/dystopian novel which I read in around 2008. The novel was set in a dystopian version of the modern (1990s/early 2000s) world; in the opening pages two teenagers break ...
13
votes
1
answer
3k
views
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 ...
- 133
6
votes
1
answer
167
views
Futuristic/dystopian short story about a man living in a hive society trying to meet his dying mother
I'm trying to find a short story I read many years ago about a guy living in a "hive" society in which everyone lives in cells, connected (I think) by computers; the substance of the ...
1
vote
0
answers
37
views
Childhood book where young girl has visions of enslaved grandmother
I'm trying to find a book I read at school when I was about 12. It was about a young black girl who kept having visions where she became her Grandmother at a young age, being trafficked as a slave. ...
- 11
3
votes
0
answers
56
views
Hamster in an aeroplane who can talk - NOT 'Tales From the Riverbank'
I'm trying to remember a book I read as a kid (I'm early 50's so it would have been in the late 1970's when I read it). It's about a boy who gets a pet hamster and decides to put it in his toy ...
1
vote
0
answers
44
views
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 oddly musing ...
- 9,935
6
votes
1
answer
933
views
Horror novel involving teenagers killed at a beach party for their part in another's (accidental) death
I think I read this 5 years ago as an ebook from the library. I'm 99% certain it's not an R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike book. There were no paranormal aspects to it, just a determined killer. A group ...
- 9,935
1
vote
1
answer
54
views
Book about mother and kids in Africa
I read the book in 2007 ish. I believe it was aimed at children or young adults but not certain.
I believe the book was set in Africa in a city. There was a "great mother" figure protecting ...
3
votes
0
answers
94
views
Story with opening line about finding God behind the moon
There's a sci-fi story with a cracking opening line. It goes something like
It happened around the time they found god, behind the moon, and they sent a fleet of spaceships to tow Her out
I maybe ...
- 31
5
votes
2
answers
108
views
Children's book where a boy runs from being caught swimming, into a library which traps him
I am attempting to identify a short book I read when I was young (around the 1990s). From what I remember the plot, or at least the beginning went as such:
A young boy was in a military camp, I seem ...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Story by S. Maugham or S. Zweig, mother manipulates her husbands to their graves and dies after her daughter's marriage
In which story by S. Maugham or S. Zweig is it said about a mother who, by manipulation, brought her husbands to their graves, complaining of a weak heart. And then hindered her daughter from ...
- 491
5
votes
0
answers
60
views
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 ...
- 529
2
votes
0
answers
60
views
British 1990s/2000s crime novel featuring twin gangsters
I am trying to recall a British crime thriller I read in the late 1990s/early 2000s. It was set in the 1960s and featured twin gangsters very obviously based on the real-life Kray twins, with some of ...
- 173
2
votes
1
answer
99
views
Locating a quote in Dostoevsky's The Idiot
I am trying to locate this quote that I came across. I believe it was spoken by Aglaya (or Nastasya?) in The Idiot, but I'm having trouble locating it:
“I want to talk about everything with at least ...
- 457
4
votes
0
answers
49
views
Looking for a children's mystery novel set in south africa
I am looking for a children's mystery novel set in South Africa, of which I remember several details. I should say up front that the novel I am looking for is not Phyllis Whitney's "Secret of ...
- 141
5
votes
1
answer
146
views
looking for a novel—perhaps from the eighties—about King Solomon
Around forty years ago, standing in a bookstore, I read the first chapter of a novel: the opening was set in King Solomon's court, at the moment that he was recounting to his courtiers his dream (...
- 574
2
votes
1
answer
135
views
Russian (possibly) story in which a man is too shy to meet his pen-pal
I am pretty sure this is Russian and a short-story but not 100% sure.
Man likes a woman, woman likes him back too. They write letters to each other, but met only once or never. She asks him to meet ...
- 23
4
votes
1
answer
83
views
Children's illustrated book about a Masai warrior and a lion
When I was a child in the late eighties, my local library had an illustrated book. I was four to five years old and barely remember it, but I know it was really important to me at that age (I kept ...
- 141
2
votes
1
answer
69
views
What is the name of this op-ed/essay/newspaper article written by Walt Whitman
It's very hard to find this essay/op-ed Whitman wrote because it's not included in Leaves of Grass and Google keyword searches always prioritize sites which discuss Leaves of Grass. Whitman wrote an ...
- 293
4
votes
1
answer
105
views
YA novel about a girl who gets caught stealing, and then has to deal with the social consequences
I was explaining the concept of a Problem Novel to someone, when I suddenly had vivid memories of another one that I read when I was a child. The basic plot of it was that a young woman, probably ...
- 9,935
4
votes
0
answers
39
views
Short children's story about an android who thinks they're human who creates an android
The Tomato Surprise TV Tropes page describes a story about an android who thinks they're human who creates an android.
In a short story in a children's book, the protagonist is a young prodigy living ...
- 345
2
votes
1
answer
49
views
Choose your own adventure, with car racing in the Alps and a kidnapping plot
I remember a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style novel whose title I cannot remember. I read it sometime between 2010 and 2016 (throwing darts at a memory board). It is an English title, and I ...
- 229
2
votes
1
answer
123
views
Science Fiction version of Queneau's "Exercices de Style"?
I somewhere read there is an "extended" version (I only know the "standard" one which has a German translation) of Queneau's "Exercices de Style". Including an SF version ...
- 219
10
votes
1
answer
2k
views
A story about a girl and a mechanical girl with a tattoo travelling on a train
There is a story I recall many details from, but the title still escapes me. I read a physical school library copy between 2013-2018, in elementary/middle; I live in the USA.
The story starts with a ...
- 229
2
votes
0
answers
118
views
Lesbian webcomic set in Spain about a rich girl and her family's servant
A long time ago I stumbled on this in a manga site. It was not a manga; this manga site posted comics sometimes. It was set in century Spain (I think?). The main girl is from a rich family who owns a ...
- 129
1
vote
1
answer
50
views
I'm looking for a book about a boy in New York city who knows all about animals
I read a book in I think middle school (around the mid 2000s) about a boy who moves into a new apartment with his single mother and his pet mouse. I specifically remember his mother saying that the ...
- 11
6
votes
3
answers
457
views
Looking for a SF/alternate history book about a 19th century style explorer who navigates lands with corrupted fauna and flora
Apologies in advance for the vagueness, as I have not read it but only remember fragments of the summary blurb on the back from glancing at it in a bookstore.
What I do remember:
It imitated the ...
- 71
0
votes
0
answers
38
views
Book about a rich orphan blackmailed by an ex
I am looking for a book about a rich girl being orphaned in high school. She is put into foster care with a woman that I believe lives by a lake, maybe a trailer park. She gets blackmailed by her ex ...
- 1
3
votes
0
answers
53
views
Short story where a sideshow barker asks a child to debunk his paranormal exhibits, including ectoplasm
The question has most of the elements that I remember, but not the author or title of the short story, which I’ve forgotten.
The barker is setting up the exhibit and invites a child to critique it. As ...
John
2
votes
0
answers
110
views
Illustrated child book with mushroom people
I'm trying to find a book I read when I was a child, here's what I can remember:
It was printed in the 2000s or before
I read the book in French, but I don't know whether I read it in the original or ...
2
votes
1
answer
122
views
Trying to remember a novel about a young man in treatment
I read this novel c. 2010. The main character's name was Nathaniel. In the beginning of the book he was in a car accident, and I believe the driver (his grandfather?) was killed. Nathaniel ends up ...
- 410
0
votes
1
answer
60
views
Looking for a manga: female lead in college who had an abusive father and meets a popular band member
I’m looking for this old manga I read, it’s more slice of life with a female lead in college. She has been living with her boyfriend who she met in high school. She had a abusive father and moved away ...
Sava
4
votes
1
answer
88
views
Children's book involving a pet pig (probably named Percy) and moving a house
The story involves a young child (a girl, I think) who receives a baby pig as a pet. I'm pretty sure she named the pig "Percy" which is a problem, as there is a whole series of "Percy ...
- 143
6
votes
1
answer
702
views
Children's book about a season clock and winter confining spring in his castle
I remember having a picture book as a child and I really would like to know its name and author. In it, the story goes as follows:
A watch maker and his apprentice take care of a season clock that ...
- 63
1
vote
0
answers
55
views
Name of purple hardcover book covered in a soft fabric with fables, fairy tales, or similar stories
I remember being gifted as a child some kind of hardcover book that had a purple colored soft-touch cover; I think it was some kind of fabric. There was also a purple ribbon as bookmark.
I think it ...
- 119
7
votes
1
answer
156
views
Looking for a novel featuring a scene with an illegal street race, knocking books off the bumper of a car
I read this book in the mid '90s, but it's likely older, from a couple of decades before that. It was in English, likely American English since as far as I can tell, the story is set in the USA.
What ...
- 551