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Finding a Book When Y'all've Forgotten Its Title

By

Gwen Glazer, Librarian

November 22, 2017

It can be tough to remember the title and author of a book you read a long time ago—even if it was a book that was really important to y'all. Fiction is cataloged by author and championship, not by subject or plot line, which makes identifying books by just their storyline difficult.

Readers often ask librarians for assist finding these kinds of books. And we can't effigy out the mystery every single time, just we exercise have a few tricks to help detect the answer.

First, pin down everything yous can remember almost the volume, plot, character names, time period in which the book may take been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the book.

Online resource can help with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all you accept is a bones plot line. Searching yourself is a good place to start; and so, yous can postal service to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, terminal but not least, leave a comment on this post!

Before Y'all First

Try Google! Type in everything you tin remember nigh the book — equally in, "picture volume rabbi animals advice yiddish" — and coil through the results. (That's a existent-life example of a book a patron was asking for:Information technology Could Always Be Worsepast Margot Zemach.)

Yous can as well attempt googling i key detail y'all remember from a book. I of our librarians solved a book mystery by searching "USS Y'all-Know-Who" — the proper noun of a gunkhole in the story that the patron happened to remember. (Another real-life instance: She Flew No Flagsby Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

• What'south the Proper name of That Book?
  A Goodreads grouping with searchable discussion posts and thousands of questions and answers.

• Name That Book
  A LibraryThing grouping of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-adjacent — who help solve volume mysteries via threaded discussions.

• The Fiction_L listserv
  Stumpers! Search archives of past questions, answered by an intense book-ish community, or subscribe and postal service a new i.

• Reddit's whatsthatbook thread
  A nearly endless thread of users trying to assistance other users remember book titles, including several frequently requested books. Especially skilful for scientific discipline fiction and fantasy.

• "Stump the Bookseller" web log
  A cool indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains all-encompassing, searchable athenaeum — and offers a $4 service for personalized help. Lots of children'south books here.

• Big Volume Search
  If you can but recall what the comprehend looks similar, try this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library card)

• Books & Authors

• Books in Impress

• The New York Times databases

• NoveList and NoveList M-viii (in-library utilise simply)

How to Move On

Sometimes, information technology'south just not going to happen, and you can't find that elusive book yous've been searching for. Information technology'southward okay! Cracking news: The world is total of corking books! Hither are a few ways to discover more than...

• Check out recommendations from our book experts here at NYPL. Nosotros offering suggestions via web log posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
  
• If you'd like a personalized recommendation, discover usa on Twitter or fill out our What Should I Read Next? e-mail form.
  
• Want a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to exit a comment and tell us about a volume you're trying to remember! Our library staff members will pop in and check information technology periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to brand guesses and suggestions.

More Suggestions

• If you tin call back just 1 word, use the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a particular word.

• Goodreads' browse-able lists of titles that readers have shelved in unique categories, such every bit authors' professions or decades of publication, is also be helpful.

• For recently published books, the reviews in Booklist Online are broken downwardly past detailed genre.

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Source: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22/finding-book-forgotten-title?page=3

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