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A few years ago I found this old book in a used book shop. Like, proper old, decades old when I found it. It was a Chinese novel, translated into English. It was about this Chinese family, and spanned a few years, I think some time in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The only thing I remember about is that the main character is named Mulan, and that gets commented on a lot. People are all "what an unusual name, you must have a very interesting father" all the time.
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Jul 25, 2015 07:32
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boom boom boom posted:A few years ago I found this old book in a used book shop. Like, proper old, decades old when I found it. It was a Chinese novel, translated into English. It was about this Chinese family, and spanned a few years, I think some time in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The only thing I remember about is that the main character is named Mulan, and that gets commented on a lot. People are all "what an unusual name, you must have a very interesting father" all the time. Googling "novel main character named Mulan" lead to this.
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Jul 25, 2015 16:53
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Lprsti99 posted:Googling "novel main character named Mulan" lead to this. That's it, thanks! I'm surprised it was originally written in English
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Jul 25, 2015 17:17
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Ornamented Death posted:I can only conclude you've never actually read City of the Dead and are basing this guess solely off of the title. I'm almost positive I read it a long time ago, isn't it the one where the characters are in a fortified skyscraper being attacked by an army of demon-possessed zombies? There's fights in the stairwells and sewers beneath the building too
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Jul 25, 2015 21:03
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computer parts posted:Science Fiction story (I don't remember the length, maybe a short story) where people from Earth find an alternate dimension with lots of resources and send people over there to mine and/or colonize. While they're there, they meet some people who speak German but are otherwise unfamiliar. It turns out they're from an alternate future where Nazis conquered the earth. Your description is a little off, but that's Living Space by Isaac Asimov. It's a great story.
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Jul 26, 2015 16:04
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When I was a kid my brother had a talking book from the local library about a green rabbit. I thought it was called Taffy Apple of Toffee Apple but googling turns up nothing. I also kind find anything on Wikipedia's list on fictional rabbits. This would have been mid eighties, in the UK. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember it as he listened to the cassette at least seven million times. Edit - if anyone cared, the book I asked about a while ago: Sanford posted:The fantasy one is more difficult. It was perhaps spread across more than one book. A group had to collect something (gems?) to stop A BAD THING from happening. The plot was incredibly contrived and more like the plot of a video game ("Aha, we have captured the gem of the centaur king! Now to challenge the leader of the swamp lords for his gem!"). One of the main party of characters was female and specialised in knives and knife-throwing. I think that the big bad they were trying to stop was also female. And that's all I have. was Orcs by Stan Nicholls. Sanford fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 23:52
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I work at a public library, and got this question in an email. Apparently this person has been asking around online, and the only relevant things that Google turns up are all his own posts. I'm stumped, frankly, but maybe someone on SA knows this?quote:I will try to give as many details as I can remember. I remember neither title or author, but I can promise you that the general storyline/premise
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Jul 30, 2015 19:21
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DrSunshine posted:I work at a public library, and got this question in an email. Apparently this person has been asking around online, and the only relevant things that Google turns up are all his own posts. I'm stumped, frankly, but maybe someone on SA knows this? I swear I've read something about this somewhere (and not one of these posts), but never read the book.
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Jul 30, 2015 19:52
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Book of kids' scary stories with Gerald Scarfe/Ralph Steadman-esque illustrations. One is about kids flying kites in Malaysia. Another is about a kid who gets 'a perfect day' (it looks like a marble).
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Jul 30, 2015 23:41
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I'm looking for a particular scene from a Bukowksi book. In it Henry Chianski has signed up for the track team or has been forced to participate in it for some reason. He is younger than the other participants and has no track experience. He does really well at the long jump (I think) mostly out of spite and not giving a poo poo, then as he's walking off afterward he digs in his rear end. Now, that sure sounds like it should be in Ham on Rye but I spent like 40 minutes today at the public library while some piece of poo poo 50 year old woman played World of Warcraft four feet away from me with a clicky mouse (yeah I told her to stop, no she didn't, no there was no where else to sit) and didn't find it. So maybe it's in a short story. Hopefully one of you kind bookish souls knows what volume this is in or what the name of the story is or if it is in fact in Ham on Rye and I missed it. TYVM sexy man/woman (Trying again)
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Jul 31, 2015 02:55
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I spent a minute google for you and found a guy on a bukowski forum saying it was from a poem but he doesn't say which one and according to wikipedia Bukowski wrote like a billion collections of poetry. I guess have a look at the titles and see if any of the names ring a bell or ask on that forum and someone might know. http://bukowskiforum.com/threads/was-bukowski-bisexual.111/page-2
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Jul 31, 2015 11:02
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Rough Lobster posted:I'm trying to remember the title of this so I can post about it in the awful books thread. Probably not related to this, but I read a book a few years ago that was similar to this. It was heavily based on I am Legend, might have been called something like "I am Zero" or something. Possibly a 1 word title, fairly sure about the Z. The main character was a vampire and lived in an apartment block and there was some chick appeared at some point who was probably another vampire. It was possibly a free book from some website or other. Sadly I can't remember it either. 
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Jul 31, 2015 13:07
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Lot 49 posted:I spent a minute google for you and found a guy on a bukowski forum saying it was from a poem but he doesn't say which one and according to wikipedia Bukowski wrote like a billion collections of poetry. I guess have a look at the titles and see if any of the names ring a bell or ask on that forum and someone might know. Thanks, I thought it was a story but that's definitely it, hopefully that guy is right about it being a poem. He has probably thousands of pages of poetry published. Going to be a while until I find it again 
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Jul 31, 2015 23:37
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DrSunshine posted:I work at a public library, and got this question in an email. Apparently this person has been asking around online, and the only relevant things that Google turns up are all his own posts. I'm stumped, frankly, but maybe someone on SA knows this? My sister is a Children's librarian and just forwarded that question to me. Now I am really curious about what this book is.
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Aug 1, 2015 16:31
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:My sister is a Children's librarian and just forwarded that question to me. Now I am really curious about what this book is.  He says he's tried at the Library of Congress too. Are we part of some kind of national search effort??
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Aug 1, 2015 20:35
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DrSunshine posted:
Or some kind of digital era loving ad campaign.
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Aug 1, 2015 21:17
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I'm cool with an ad campaign like this.
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Aug 1, 2015 21:58
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I'm catching up with this thread (I too lurk and enjoy reading these little blurbs) and I suddenly remembered a book I read as a kid but all I can remember about the book is that a young girl and young boy go outside in the snow/blizzard even though they are not supposed to. Perhaps they also were not dressed very well for the weather? In either case the children come back, I can't recall if the boy and girl come back together, or if the boy is lost and is found by others and brought back. In either case the boy gets sick (I think I remember him having a fever?) and dies. While I'm here I'll also throw in another story I can't find because I think I've combined two stories into one. They might actually be one book but over a long period of time, although I doubt it So I will separate the ideas as best I can. One story is of a girl who lives in a small home/shack type situation. When I think of her home I keep thinking of the phrase "rain on a tin roof" but that's the title of a short story that I don't think this is. She lives here with her mom who has a boyfriend(?) that the girl hates. I recall mentions of her being able to hear the sounds of them having sex in the next room. The "other" story is of a girl (young adult? woman? I can't recall) and her mother (or maybe an aunt) had breast cancer and it is in remission after she has chemo and has her breasts removed. I remember the main character feeling very negatively about her not having breasts? Or perhaps she was upset because only one was removed? anyway I also think I recall this character getting married, I can't recall if she actually loved her husband or not, but she had some very serious issues surrounding sex (disordered eating and other things) , caused by family members being obsessed w/ her remaining a virgin (possibly until marriage), including her mom(?) physically checking her to make sure her hymen was still present on many occasions, also listening to her pee at night to hear if she peed too loudly (which she used as an indicator of loss of virginity??). This is a great thread and I'm glad it exists.
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Aug 3, 2015 04:21
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Here's one Australian goons might remember: You know those Lucky/Arrow book catalogues you could order stuff from at primary school? I loved those things. Back in early primary school (probably 92-96ish) I ordered from those catalogues a bunch of these DIY activity books, where you had to cut out the pages and staple them together. All I remember was that the mascot was a fly (think Louie the Fly, a little), and the illustrator was someone like Terry Denton or Roland Harvey. There were calendars and diaries you could make, and a collection of mini books and tools that were spy-themed IIRC. I loved cutting out the pages and getting them all in binding order so I could staple them and make the books. Does anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?
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Aug 4, 2015 09:11
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Here's one I've been looking for on and off for a few years. It's possible that I'm mixing up two different stories which may be making the search more difficult. Its a sci-fi/fantasy type, possibly young adult level of writing. I read it probably sometime in the early 90s. The paperback cover had a big spaceship being towed through the water by a regular tugboat type earth ocean going vessel. The protagonist is possibly some sort of axe-wielding berserker-type. (This may be one of the mixed up things.) The damsel is a psychic/empath, although this is not like a Regular Thing. She may have come from a sort of isolated, possibly inbred camp of separatists? The protagonist eventually discovers he also has some mind powers. Its set in a post-apocalyptic future where aliens have evidently knocked earth's technology level back - at one point a big deal is made out of a shopkeeper having a functional refrigerator to make ice with. People drive wagons around, and the remnants of interstate highways are explained as tracks of giant wagons of yesteryear, although the protagonist knows this not to be true because he's seen the tracks split around obstacles or somesuch. (That's actually the part that always jangles the book back into my memory.) The beetle-like aliens are possibly not still present on earth, at least that I can remember, but they have some kind of golden(?) communication device that looks like them. Commands are passed to the pseudo-religious ruling class, who then pass messages between each other by regular radio (which the masses do not have access to.) The protagonist is a smartish fellow and works all this out, including triangulating the radio signals and learning the basics of antennas. I don't actually remember a lot of the plot. There is a lot of derring-do. There is a hang-glider rescue operation at one point. (A big deal is made out of having the plastic.) There is an infiltration episode. Someone may have opened a lock with their mind. At the end it is discovered that the aliens were using people as livestock, I think. I don't remember how it happens, possibly having to do with a super genius little girl who figures out the aliens use base-12 math, but the heroes gain control of a spaceship full of people who may have descended from an earlier mass abduction or somesuch. Help?
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Aug 5, 2015 05:02
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DrSunshine posted:I work at a public library, and got this question in an email. Apparently this person has been asking around online, and the only relevant things that Google turns up are all his own posts. I'm stumped, frankly, but maybe someone on SA knows this? I can't help. But it sounds like an interesting book and I hope someone finds it.
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Aug 5, 2015 11:43
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Years ago, I ran into a book in a bookshop that was about dragons. It was written in a realistic field notes style with sketches and all, with the protagonists landing on an island and discovering loads of weird animals. I remember the dragons being pink with pterosaurian heads, gills, and light balloon-like bodies. There was also some kind of living bear-trap creature.
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Aug 14, 2015 21:17
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Tardigrade posted:Years ago, I ran into a book in a bookshop that was about dragons. It was written in a realistic field notes style with sketches and all, with the protagonists landing on an island and discovering loads of weird animals. I remember the dragons being pink with pterosaurian heads, gills, and light balloon-like bodies. There was also some kind of living bear-trap creature. Graeme Base's "Discovery of Dragons"?
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Aug 15, 2015 19:28
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About thirty years ago my school library had a sweet children's book book about ridiculous (fictional) inventions - I only remember a pencil with built-in cheat notes, and some kind of giant destructive rolling wheel. Cartoony art in the style of Usborne's knowhow books. A general anti-authoritarian tone. Longshot, but any ideas?
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Aug 16, 2015 01:17
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No, I remember it being more serious, Robinson Crusoe style. Discovery of Dragons is an amazing book though
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Aug 16, 2015 03:04
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I've got one, though it's vague as hell and honestly I'm not entirely sure it wasn't a weird dream. I remember reading a book where a demon/monster thing was pissed off at the main character because while it could look at all of time, once it had chosen to spend some time doing something, that was what they were always doing there instead of being able to change time/whatever. I want to say they spent it making a sword? Google is giving me no love here.
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Aug 16, 2015 03:58
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Tardigrade posted:No, I remember it being more serious, Robinson Crusoe style. It's not Flight of Dragons, is it? That has lighter-than-air dragons although I don't think it has most of the other stuff in your description.
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Aug 16, 2015 04:43
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xiw posted:About thirty years ago my school library had a sweet children's book book about ridiculous (fictional) inventions - I only remember a pencil with built-in cheat notes, and some kind of giant destructive rolling wheel. Cartoony art in the style of Usborne's knowhow books. A general anti-authoritarian tone. I don't know the name but think I read this book also, interestingly under exactly the same conditions (school library, about 30 years ago - I was in the UK, I don't know if that matches). If it's the same one I'm thinking of it had the pencil with the built in un-rolling cheat notes, but the only other thing I remember was a page called "How to take a bath without getting wet" and it had a sort of fake water tray you placed over an empty bath, with cut-outs for your head and knees on to stick out. I believe each double page was titled with "How to <x>" with text on the left and an illustration on the right. Possibly it the book was called something like "How to do everything" but that's not an easy thing to search for. Sorry I can't help more than that.
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Aug 16, 2015 05:29
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Hobnob posted:I don't know the name but think I read this book also, interestingly under exactly the same conditions (school library, about 30 years ago - I was in the UK, I don't know if that matches). If it's the same one I'm thinking of it had the pencil with the built in un-rolling cheat notes, but the only other thing I remember was a page called "How to take a bath without getting wet" and it had a sort of fake water tray you placed over an empty bath, with cut-outs for your head and knees on to stick out. I believe each double page was titled with "How to <x>" with text on the left and an illustration on the right. Possibly it the book was called something like "How to do everything" but that's not an easy thing to search for. I'm in NZ, and we got UK books primarily, so seems likely. I'm glad to know it exists anyway and I'm not just dreaming it.
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Aug 16, 2015 12:36
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Tardigrade posted:Years ago, I ran into a book in a bookshop that was about dragons. It was written in a realistic field notes style with sketches and all, with the protagonists landing on an island and discovering loads of weird animals. I remember the dragons being pink with pterosaurian heads, gills, and light balloon-like bodies. There was also some kind of living bear-trap creature. Natural History of Dragons This is probably too new.
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Aug 16, 2015 12:57
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Clipperton posted:It's not Flight of Dragons, is it? That has lighter-than-air dragons although I don't think it has most of the other stuff in your description. That's not it, the book was more like a Lost Worldesque exploration of an island, and the dragons were just part of the menagerie. They were also really alien-looking, like big pink blimps with pterosaurian heads. Then again my memory might blurring a lot. a friendly penguin posted:Natural History of Dragons This is probably too new. Too new, I think it was late 90s-early 00s.
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Aug 16, 2015 15:34
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I found a recent story online centering on someone either from Innsmouth or a descendant of the Innsmouth bloodline. The premise is that the story takes place after the government destroys the Innsmouth cult kind of like David Koresh's Waco cult in real life, and she's angry and persecuted. The story's very sympathetic to her and her religion, though that religion still comes off as kind of nihilistic. The government tries to use her help to find more destructive cultists, but she's hostile to them and barely agrees to do anything. I was linked to it after reading a bunch of articles about Lovecraft being a racist, one of which recommended this story because it addresses that and subverts Lovecraft based on that. But I lost the link and forgot the title. Ring any bells?
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Aug 20, 2015 16:11
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Tardigrade posted:Years ago, I ran into a book in a bookshop that was about dragons. It was written in a realistic field notes style with sketches and all, with the protagonists landing on an island and discovering loads of weird animals. I remember the dragons being pink with pterosaurian heads, gills, and light balloon-like bodies. There was also some kind of living bear-trap creature. One of the several Dragonology books by Dugald A. Steer?
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Aug 20, 2015 19:58
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Nettle Soup posted:Probably not related to this, but I read a book a few years ago that was similar to this. It was heavily based on I am Legend, might have been called something like "I am Zero" or something. Possibly a 1 word title, fairly sure about the Z. The main character was a vampire and lived in an apartment block and there was some chick appeared at some point who was probably another vampire. It was possibly a free book from some website or other. Found this, I had the title right and everything, it was just so obscure that Google brought up nothing. Edit: Actual Google brings it up, it's the google alternative I was trying out brings nothing.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7460619-i-am-nero
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Aug 20, 2015 20:28
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Solitair posted:I found a recent story online centering on someone either from Innsmouth or a descendant of the Innsmouth bloodline. The premise is that the story takes place after the government destroys the Innsmouth cult kind of like David Koresh's Waco cult in real life, and she's angry and persecuted. The story's very sympathetic to her and her religion, though that religion still comes off as kind of nihilistic. The government tries to use her help to find more destructive cultists, but she's hostile to them and barely agrees to do anything.
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Aug 20, 2015 21:44
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I don't know if this is even real but it's in my head and I can't get it out: SF or fantasy. Some kid or teenager (male) from a tribe or a town meets another kid or teenager (male) who's from a more primitive culture. They meet in the woods or in the wild if I remember correctly. And there are some long-lived people in the primitive culture (either immortal or just hundreds of years old). Also, if I remember correctly, at the end of the novel the primitive culture moves to a secluded place. An island maybe? The secondary character, if I'm remembering it well, is a girl from the primitive culture who ends up in a position of power. I couldn't decide if it's SF or fantasy cause I think it's one of those "fantasy setting is future earth" kind of books. It's not Dark Eden.
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Aug 21, 2015 05:01
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I'm trying to remember the name of a sci fi book I read a few years ago. It was about a generation ship that was caught in a larger ship that was basically a prison. The larger ship was sectioned off and was chocked full of aliens, one of which was an aggressive dog type race. I wish I could remember more about it. I'd like to re-read the drat thing.
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Aug 21, 2015 21:55
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Happy Hedonist posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a sci fi book I read a few years ago. It was about a generation ship that was caught in a larger ship that was basically a prison. The larger ship was sectioned off and was chocked full of aliens, one of which was an aggressive dog type race. I wish I could remember more about it. I'd like to re-read the drat thing. Haven't had a lot of luck looking this up. Only things I've found that might fit are Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein, or Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo.
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Aug 22, 2015 03:01
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Happy Hedonist posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a sci fi book I read a few years ago. It was about a generation ship that was caught in a larger ship that was basically a prison. The larger ship was sectioned off and was chocked full of aliens, one of which was an aggressive dog type race. I wish I could remember more about it. I'd like to re-read the drat thing. That sounds a lot like Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds except that I wouldn't really call it a generation ship.
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Aug 22, 2015 11:56
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Sanford posted:One of the several Dragonology books by Dugald A. Steer? No, too new. Thanks though.
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Aug 22, 2015 19:31
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