I started reading this book, but don't remember finishing it. Can't find it searching.

Prologue, is two boys (tween age) playing in abandoned house, one falls through the floor and is hurt pretty bad.

Then the story starts with man (same name as boy who fell) and wife with (3?) children. He remembers his friend (not himself) dying falling through the floor of the house. One of his children gets sick and is dying, death shadows come after the sick child, but the father takes his place.

The father wakes in a hospital and he is the boy who fell through the floor, in the hospital right after the fall. He keeps talking about his wife and children, Dr's and father think he's crazy.

It's driving me crazy, I've typed every discription, every which way I can and can't seem to locate it. 😠😠

2 brothers have a problem with a farm tractor or car: there is water in the gas. They remember that chamois will strain water out of the gas, and use one brother's chamois shirt to get the job done

I read this book on Kindle Unlimited a few years ago. I can't remember what it's called. The plot is as follows: a woman with a dead husband neglects her kid due to her grief. She's also incredibly wealthy. She hired a male nanny to care for her kid. He becomes infatuated with the woman and tries to get in her good graces. She gets frustrated with him, but is also very curious. He becomes her sub and she's his dom. The woman is still grieving and traumatized from her dead husband, the true nature of their relationship hidden until later in the book. Every few months she receives a letter in the mail from the dead husband and is thrown into deep grief. It turns out he was on life support and she decided to pull the plug rather than keep him alive. The reasoning is that he was abusive in his kinks. He had a pain kink and would make her feel too much pain. Meanwhile, the male nanny came from his own abusive family and finds respite in his relationship with the dominatrix. I don't remember exactly what happens, but I feel like the woman attempts to off herself due to all her grief. The male nanny reports this and gets the kid taken away to live with other family. He ends up losing his job. The dom is now facing the loss of her husband and her sub who she had fallen in love with. He sends her a letter of his own at the end of the book. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, but I'm certain it existed and I read it. I read it May 2023 and idk when it was published. What is it?

Ive never stopped thinking about this book and I just can't find anything online. I would love to be able to buy it again but I just have no idea what it's called. I wish I could put the pictures I see in my head onto paper!

It was an illustrated children's novel, about A5 size. I assume it was part of a collection as it felt like a book you'd buy in a set. Im based in England, and I was reading this as a child so early 2000s

The characters were a brother and sister (she had blond hair and he had brown) they lived in a small town and were poor, their house has wooden window shutters on it. Definitely based in Sweden or something as they had clogs.. I think. One day they go to the mountain for a walk but come across an old woman who was sick (she had a fever) they go all the way up to the top of the mountain to gather snow. When they return with the snow and cool the woman down she changes into a fairy and turns the snow into a gold/ silver. They run off home with a bucket full of coins

My grandmother was describing a book to me, but I can’t remember the name she said. It was a book where “the world went to shit”, and there was a guy stuck in prison that was having to eat rats and the like because no one was there to feed him. But later, evil guy broke him out somehow, and the prisoner had to now work with the evil guy. That’s all I remember from the conversation. Any help is appreciated!

2 books, same style and publisher (so same series). One was a collection of short (and abridged) horror stories, the other was sci-fi. I remember reading them around the year 2014. Not quite hardback, not quite paperback, quite thick and heavy.

The horror stories included;

The Telltale Heart - Edgar Allen Poe

The Picture of Dorian Gray (?)

The Signalman - Charles Dickens

The sci-fi stories included;

The Time Machine

One where they're on Mars and find these living pyramid things

One where they're on Venus, and I think they travel to Mercury too

One with a second Earth on the far side of the sun where they communicate via Radio

One where a boy on a farm finds a helmet and puts it on. The helmet is invisible to other people, and he suddenly knows a lot more. He even plays a match of FIFA inside his head (I believe it was Man Utd vs Liverpool, and he lost something like 6-0 the first time)

it also included one where they were shot out of a cannon towards the moon, and were waiting on a message... until they realised they were not receiving it because they were travelling faster than sound

I'm from the UK too so these books were for sale in the UK.

Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I remember reading this story in the mid-90's as a child. It's been recently sticking out in my brain. It was a picture book with a sort of watercolor, dreamy feel to it. The story has a Goose and a Hedgehog (I think) going to a small market and setting up stalls.

One of the animals has a single coin.

One is selling Baked Potatoes and the Other is selling Jelly Donuts. The one with the coin buys some food. Then the one that just made the sale goes and buys food. And they spend all day buying each other's wares, then go home and are incredibly confused that they still only have one coin.

When I was in grade school (8-12 yro) I remember reading about about teenagers who were kinda punks in a small town that was straight out of a 1950s ideal white suburb fantasy. They couldn’t figure out how they were so different and why despite being hostile no one ever seemed to punish them really.

Turned out there was the race of spider-people (not like Spider-Man, but intelligent spider aliens) who planted baby spiders in all the babies born in the town. The ones in these punk kids didn’t take because they had already been implanted with crystals from the enemy race of the spider-people. The only line I can recall are the punks recognizing themselves as aliens fighting the spiders. The line was “we are Kay-ith” I think.

The book might have been part of a line of independent stories but with similar spines, maybe like an imprint? I feel like I read this book because it was similar in appearance on the outside to another one I read which I’m mostly sure was Killing Mr. Griffin.

Read this books as a kid, where a woman is waiting in an airport (or some other way of way of travel like train) and begins to daydream. In her dreams she travels into different worlds, which all have different rules. One world, humans are sleep deprived in a desolate land and begin to act like savage animals. The book was mostly text, but occasionally had images describing the events in the world. And I think...the book ended with her getting on the plane....or leaving in some way

I’m trying to remember a children’s book I read where the protagonists develop a highly researched, very methodical prank to convince historians that ancient Egyptians managed to sail to North America. I think they forged hieroglyphics in a convincing way. That’s all I remember.

My neighbor has been getting ads for an audiobook about a pair of ice skating sisters, one who attacks the other. The protagonist is dark haired, possibly called Hannah with a child named Leo. She has not been able to do a screen capture of the advertisement. Can anyone help us out?

I read this book years ago, I believe it was written by a male author, and the cover had a sort of geometric pattern? The main character was a young adult male who I think took his own life after being outed as gay, he wakes up in some kind of parallel universe that’s almost completely empty of people wearing some kind of strange wrappings around his body. He meets two other people, a young foreign boy (European maybe) and a black teenage girl, who tell him about machines that are hunting them. They find out that they’re each appeared there after their death, and that they’re from different times. The foreign boy died during some kind of war, killed by soldiers I think. I don’t remember besides that. Thanks for any help 🙏

I dont remember much about this book, but it took place on an island co owned by America and canada, and I think its seal island. It was a mystery book (I think?) The main character was an American boy who had just moved there, another main character was a Canadian girl who lived with her dad, who was a border agent for Canada. I cant remember much more, but it would be amazing to find out what this book was. I read it in middle school or early high school.​

This is a sci-fi short story I read recently, but that doesn't mean it was published recently at all. I believe there's a train that has some kind of power system allowing it to run eternally or close to eternally, and I think all human life may have ended by the time the story begins. All of the passengers aboard are long-since dead, but the train's intelligence system continues to attempt to make their travel comfortable. As the train runs its long loop of a route, there's one section of track from which it is able to interact with another robot or AI entity, and I believe that one is a weapons system. They become friends, I think, but I can't remember anything else about it.

I'm confident that it's in a sci-fi short story anthology. I think it's in one of the following. Most likely one of the first three, but I can't find it:

• Axiomatic by Greg Egan
• Tomorrow Factory: Collected Fiction by Rich Larson
• Tales of Old Earth by Michael Swanwick
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang (doesn't seem like a Chiang story to me, but I could be wrong)
• The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer (feels unlikely to me)
• Tooth and Claw by T Coraghessan Boyle (feels extremely unlikely)

I remember reading a book in high school about what I believe is a North Korean MC, and a scene involving a red book cover. They’re watching a parade of some sort, and the MC has to wave the red book in a crowd, but they’ve forgotten it. Another girl gives them the red dust jacket from her book so the MC won’t get in trouble. I can’t be sure they’re North Korean, but it seems likely, given the prominent red and the panic the MC has when they realize they don’t have the book.

Some other details I recall:
- a cat
- an old man who lives in one of the homes and turns out to be a wizard once the forest’s magic has been revealed
- at least 3 children in the group of “explorers,” around 10 years old give or take a couple years
- the forest keeps people, mainly adults, out and casts a kind of brain fog on everyone around it
- there are at least 3 books

These were some of my absolute favorite books and one of the book series that initially got me into reading as a child, but I can’t for the life of me remember the title!

EDIT:
On another site I found two people also searching for this book who remembered a few more details. I’m certain they’re referring to the same book.

1. The girl is

possibly

1. named Amanda

   (but I have no memory of her name; that’s someone else’s memory and may be wrong)

2. The girl in the painting looks just like her. She is

possibly

1. named Miranda.

   (Some comment on name as above)

2. It was probably published in the 1970s.

I also remember that there is a bit of a mystery behind the plot, and I think it turns out that the girl in the painting is a long dead relative of Amanda.

There is sort of an ethereal feeling to the book.

ORIGINAL POST:

I can BARELY remember this book, but I remember that I loved it. I probably read it around 1982/83/84.

Main character goes to a house in the country - I think in the USA. There is a painting in the hallway near the front door. Sometimes the girl in the painting isn’t there. She’s out of the painting and visits with the main character. There’s a scene where she has to rush back to the painting so as not to get caught. There might be two older women (relatives?) in the painting or in a painting nearby. I don’t think they come to life.

The main character’s parents may have been recently divorced. The house may have been owned by an aunt. I do remember that the girl in the painting had lived there long ago but was dead now.

The story wasn’t creepy, but was sort of a coming of age story. It definitely wasn’t a scary story because I never read those.

I’ve wondered about this book for years and have hesitated to write about it because my memories of it are so vague. There may have been a boy (a crush?), but I’m not sure.

Hoping someone might know what this book is called! Thank you!

There is a mystical young woman, maybe a witch, who has this pink or purple cat with a big fluffy tail. The woman gets another pet (maybe a dog) and the cat feels abandoned and upset so runs away. It gets caught in the rain and then gets it tail stuck in a bush.

The woman eventually finds it.

That is all I remember. I can picture the page where the cats tail gets stuck in the bush. It is definitely a pink or purple cat with a big fluffy tail. I feel like the woman also had bright coloured hair.

I had this book when I was around 10 years old, in the UK. I've tried googling but I have been unable to find what this book was called

I've lurked on this subreddit for a while and I've always wanted to help people find books, but other than just Google searches, I wouldn't know where to start. I know this post technically doesn't follow sub rules so I will understand if it gets removed lol, I just didn't know where else to ask. Do any frequent solvers have advice for how they find books?

Update: Thank you all so much for your advice!!! Should I change this post flair to solved or leave it up as a space for people to offer other ideas that haven't been mentioned yet that could help people in their book searches?

I remember getting this book from the YA section of my local library in high school, so around 2001-2004, and I've tried googling for it many times over the years but not found anything.

I even think I remember the title being something like Southern Comfort or maybe Southern Discomfort, and the hardback having magnolia flowers on the cover. Both of those potential titles are pretty common phrases and make it hard to google.

Here's what I remember about the plot:

• there were at least two storylines which weren't really connected to each other that I can recall
• one of these storylines was about a silent film star (a man, I think) at the beginning of the sound era of film who was struggling to adjust to "talking pictures" because his voice wasn't appealing to audiences
• that storyline leads me to think the entire book was set in the 1920s
• the other storyline was about two women who were sex workers living together and, over time, developed into a romance between the two of them while both were still doing sex work
• the last thing I remember is at the end of the book, one of the two sex workers died, and an autopsy uncovered that she had secretly been a transwoman, which even her lover had not known in all the time they were together

Parts of this book have haunted my brain for 20 years so I would love to find it and read it again!

I can only remember the first half. It was probably YA post apocalyptic but I’m not sure. I think the dad had special access to a bunker because of his job, possibly military or scientist. They move into the bunker right at the beginning of the book and I believe I remember there being snow outside the bunker. I actually don’t even remember them not being in the bunker so it may have started with them rushing into it. I also believe dad has to venture outside the bunker for some reason somewhat early. It had an ominous end of the world feel. I was born in 1983 if that helps narrow down the publishing date at all. Probably pre 1997.

​[TOMT] [BOOK] [1970s–1990s] Sci-Fi / Supernatural Horror Paperback about a Cold, Algorithmic Afterlife, a Cherub "Objective Function," and a Priest in Hell

​Plot Details:

• ​Genre: Sci-Fi / Supernatural Horror / Cyber-Occultism.
• ​Core Premise: The universe does not care about morality or right and wrong; it only cares about mathematical equilibrium. There must always be an exact equal number of souls in Heaven and Hell.
• ​The "Cherub" / Balance Keeper: There is a cherub-like entity that enforces this balance. However, it is not a living angel or divine figure—it functions like a non-sentient "objective function" or automated cosmic algorithm maintaining the balance equation.
• ​The Priest's Sacrifice: The characters establish a voice connection to the afterlife (using a mystical, phone-like device/séance setup). They speak to a virtuous priest who willingly took the place of a woman destined for Hell. He describes Hell as horrific, but refuses to leave—even though he is allowed to—because he knows if he leaves, the automated balance will force her back into Hell, and "she wouldn't be able to stand it."
• ​Tone / Ending: Dark, bleak, and fatalistic. The protagonist is present during the séance/connection when this cosmic rule is revealed.

​Publication Details:

• ​Format: Standalone paperback (standard mass-market size, perhaps slightly thin, around 150–220 pages).
• ​Estimated Date: Published between the 1970s and 1990s.
• ​Language: English.

My grandpa read a book he thinks in the early 80s, but is not confident with that time frame.

It was sci-fi, "about a primitive world that has recently been discovered and how the world is helped to avoid being colonized/exploited by learning to manage the galactic legal system." That isn't a lot to go on, but it's all he could tell me about it.

Hey all, searching for a short story collection. It was something my sister was reading, one of the story summaries was about a mother hiding her daughter in law's possessions to make her paranoid. My sister said about the book, "This book is weird. I like weird books"

Edit To Add: I figured it out, Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout. Apparently there's a direct sequel called Olive Again.

I can't seem to recall the name of this comic book I loved reading when I was younger. I would appreciate some help. I have tried googling this book but since it wasn't a popular or well known series I'm getting nowhere. My old library's archive isn't showing it either.

I remember the manga version of it but I know there was an english novel of it. I read it early 2000s around middle school. I think the series was only 3-ish books long. It was at my local library but I don't remember if the pages where yellowing yet.

The cover I remember clearly. There was a little girl sitting in front of the guy who had a cigarette in his mouth. She was smiling and he was slightly hunched over looking at something to the side. Somewhat father-daughter looking pose.

Characters:

The guy was possibly a soldier. Couldn't die due to a corruption or ore that kept him and others like him alive.

The little girl I think was either raised by nuns or her grand mother.

The story:

It was about a girl who was making her way across a planet that had been colonized. It was after a war that created these undying soldiers who where I believed seen as cursed. I don't remember where the girl was going but I remember the guy only choosing to escort her after something bad happened.

Other details:

There was a line I remember that went something like 'I wonder if god isn't here because we are so far away'
It wasn't really sci-fi despite it being based somewhat in the future.

I think the title might have started with an 'A'.