Desperately Seeking That One Book

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In November 2003 we published a blog post called How to Find That Book You’ve Spent Years Looking For. Years later, the post is consistantly one of our most popular.

The online resources in the post are all still active and so is the comment thread. Mostly people post desperate appeals from readers who have forgotten the title of a book they loved. These appeals make for wonderful reading. Here are just a few. Can you help these people? Do you have an appeal of your own?

I’m looking for a children’s book, about a little old Chinese lady, and she makes these rice patty balls and they fall off the table and roll places and she chases them and she ends up chasing them through some cave.

I am searching for a book based in England. The subject went to a boarding school and was befriended by a lesbian type girl who was on the hockey team.

I’m looking for a book about a girl who travels into the magical realms through these energy paths. Everyone is fighting for control of the land and I believe she meets Satan (possibly her father)?

I am looking for a book that I read back around 1992 about a boy and a girl that were trapped in the basement of an old theatre or something to that effect.

I’m looking for a book I read about 10 or 15 years ago that takes place in heaven. It’s a mystery about a murder/death of an angel.

I read a nonfiction book 20-30 years ago about a homesteading family in Canada that had a pet goat named Annabelle. Anybody ever hear of it?

I’m trying to locate a book I read in the mid or late 70’s. I think it was book about Casper but it could have been another ghost. There were three ghosts all together, I believe, and it had robbers in it.

I’m looking for a book about a girl and her brother who go through a mirror or something similar and end up in a castle (I think) and there’s a girl there who is the girls twin, only evil. It’s not a scary book.

I’m looking for a book that I read as a child about a little girl that goes to visit her grandmother (I think it was her grandmother) and has some magical experiences. The one part I clearly remember is when she is pouring water into the wash jug in her room the wall opens into a garden or something like that.

I’m trying to find a book that I read as an elementary student in the 80’s, but I think the book was old. It’s called Best Friend or Best Friends. The main character is a young girl who is embarrassed by her eccentric grandmother who wears bandannas and fixes bikes.

In the ’90s, I was reading a book about a girl who couldn’t find a lover since she thought no one would be a better lover than she was to herself. Anyhow, I lost the book and forgot what it was called. Does anyone know what book I’m talking about?

I am looking for a book I read in HS is was about a guy who was born into a techie future city, he is curious about things meets a joker type guy. He discovers a hidden passage in a statue which leads to a station with many ways out but only one way was kept up. He meets other people who are more mentally developed. In the end he is followed up a tower were he gets into a space ship and leaves.

I am looking for a book from the 1980’s or 90’s about a reporter who meets with a man. The man forces him to drink a potion that turns him into a werewolf. The first half of the book is about the man killing people. The second half is about him in a test facility where he escapes and stalks the people in the facility. This is driving me crazy.

I am going CRAZY remembering a book from early childhood (late 60’s early 70’s) about a glockenspiel.

Looking for a science fiction book I read years ago. I can only remember that earth was changing and people were having to move farther and farther north, they had wall to wall plants in their homes for air purification and there was one man that for some reason was chosen as the only one that the whole world would listen to so that they could change the way we used the planet’s resources. Any idea?

I am trying to identify a book I read as a young lad around about 1960ish. I found it in my local library in Southend, England. I have no title or author. The story was about a young American boy who was a hobo, traveled on trains and got a job setting up pins in a bowling alley. I remember it as an absorbing story and would like to rediscover it.

There is this book I read over 3 years ago I never got to finish it because I was going into 6th grade. I don’t remember the title but the plot was about this boy when he went to sleep his sister was kidnapped in his dreams he went to go save her on the way he met up with this girl who was a warrior (guess you could say) who saved him from the people that they were in war with but that was her job to help people like him but he wanted to save his little sister they couldn’t leave unless they had a master of some sort (I guess you could say) witch he did and made the girl his apprentice he was the same man that was her older brother’s master and I remember on there journey there the boy met the leader and gave her some kind of plant leaf she signed the papers then burned the plant along with papers to get rid of the smell. That’s all I remember please if you no about that book help PLEASE!

Image by Bacteriano, licensed under Creative Commons.

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