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openSci-Fi Empire State Building Book? Literature
There was this sci-fi book that I saw in an airport bookstore maybe a year and a half ago. It had the Empire State Building on the front, but the exterior was crumbling, revealing a black, futuristic skyscraper inside. It was about this scientist who invented an anti-gravity device & some people like the MIB approached him and gave him a choice of either working in their secret laboratories, perfecting his device, but it would never be known about by the general populace, or he could go to a secret prison, where other geniuses who refused to help the MIB-like people & wanted to show the world their creations are imprisoned. He chooses to go to prison, where I think he somehow leads a rebellion or something? When I found it, it was a hardcover. Please let me know what it's called or who it's by.
openBook I found once Literature
Does anyone know what this book might have been? It was about a girl who realized that her loving parents had actually kidnapped her when she saw her picture on a milk carton, and I'm pretty sure I saw it before 2003.
openCat gets adopted and bites a bomb? Literature
There's a book I'm trying to find, the cat gets adopted by a church, and every other chapter it switches to when the cat is in heaven with St. Paul, and the cat gets tiny wings and has an almost saintly halo, and he bites a bomb that he thinks is a snake and saves the church, and i think he sits on a balcony once? also the bomb was put there by guys pretending to be carpenters, and one of the heaven guys really likes the cat and says it reminds him of his cat he had when he was alive? does anyone know this book?
openTeenagers Psychologically Tormented By Landlords? Literature
This was a book I only read part of, it was in the teen section of my elementary school around 2005 or 2006 I think. From what I remember there were two girls who were going to school away from home, and they were supposed to stay with this couple who rented rooms to students. The couple seemed normal at first, but I remember that when the girls were signing the renting agreement or whatever the couple got them to fill out a questionnaire about whether they were more afraid of rats, snakes or drowning. They proceeded to gradually make the girls feel like they were going insane, and anytime the girls tried to ask people for help the couple would convince them the girls were lying out of spite or for attention. I remember thinking it seemed pretty dark to be in an elementary school library. Does anyone know of a book like this? Sorry I can remember any character names or specific details.
openSTEPHEN KING NOVEL Literature
I am searching for a Stephen King novel about a future of where people do not approve of having children. Some tropes for it include "hate plague" (though later averted) and "child hater" (and maybe "would hurt a child"). I thought this begun with a "d" or "i", but I could be wrong. Can anyone please help me? For the life of me I cannot remember this story.
openNo Title Literature
It was a short story about an alien invasion,a General Patton style figure decides to open t5he alien space ship and kill everyone inside. He's dismissed, and another general takes over. The new general allows the aliens to escape, and they start killing people. The decision is made to nuke the city to kill all the aliens. Secstate wants to nuke the city, but the president and vice president dont. The general kills them both, and refers to the sec state as president, suggesting he will nuke the city
openBook series where boy keeps getting transformed into stuff Literature
Looking for a children's book series where a boy keeps getting transformed into various things, I think maybe to teach him some moral or something like that. Was probably a Christian book series, because I remember seeing it a lot in my local Christian bookshop.
openVery weird short story about cyclops, floating hand and Orion Literature
Ten years ago I read a short story for a Summer reading class ten years ago. I loved the weirdness of the story but cannot for the life of me remember its name.
So the story began with a kid being afraid of a mysterious floating hand. He worried that in the night when he slept the hand would kill him or something. Later on he recounts the story of Orion's murder and how his cheating wife carried out the deed.
The rest is a bit flaky to me, but I definitely remember the ending, where the kid goes out to find his parents, who were kidnapped by a giant cyclops, and he comes across his parents in a cage, about to be cooked by the giant, but the kid kills him and sets his parents free.
I've been searching off and on for years for the title or anything to go on, but sadly, no luck. :(
openYoung adult book about letters and different perspectives Literature
Hi,
I remember reading this book around 2007-2009-ish, but I got the sense that it was written in the 1990's or early 2000's. The premise of the book was that a high school student (who I think was called Gawain?) had to write a series of letters as part of a writing exercise for English class. In order to make things interesting for himself, he wrote three versions of each event, one written on white letter-headed paper, which told the formal story of what happened, one on red letter-headed paper which told an informal story of what happened that was more personal to him, and one on blue letter-headed paper, which was his own attempt at writing a fantasy novel based loosely on his life. It was possibly called 'Red, White and Blue', but I'm not certain about that (I tried a Google search of it, and got no results). The only other things that I can recall about it were that the protagonist had an older brother who was acting pretty homophobically to the protagonist's best friend, who was heavily rumoured to be gay within the narrative of the story. There was also a bit where the main character fell through an ice sheet and had to be rescued by the P.E. teacher, I think. I remember it being a really interesting way to tell a story, and I'm kind of curious to find out what other things the author wrote.
openAfrican shepard goes on fantasy quest because dying solider asked him too... Literature
It was a trilogy of books . Set in a fantasy land about an African shepard who found a group of soldiers washed up on shore and dying. Who made the Shepard swear to fulfil his quest and rescuse a princess. After his village ate the soldier to honor him ( I think ) he set off to do so. He was armed with magical weapons and a bag that carried winds . He ended up with a sell sword for an companion and a talking jaguar he saved from an angry sentient storm ( wind?) . He crossed the seas and managed to prevent a giant squid from destroying the boat he was on by talking to it in sign language and giving it coffee. Oddly when he defeated the overlord to rescue the princess she said she wanted to stay. However he promised to return her to her people and did so. However once he completed his oath he asked if she still wanted to stay with the Overlord. She said yes so he had to fight his way back to the Overlord to hand her over. Sorry for all the details but I have been desperate to read the series again and I have no idea what it is called.
openBird-Flu Armageddon Literature
I remember once reading the back of a book about teenagers fleeing to Canada because of a bird flu epidemic. Does anyone know what the title of that book might be?
openDoes anybody know the name of this scifi short story? Literature
Back in the 90's Amazing Stories published a short story (I forget the title) in which a man is given a treatment that gives him amazing regenerative powers so he can live for years without eating, drinking, or breathing. Unfortunately, the process of transforming him puts him in a temporary state of paralysis, in which he appears dead—and is mistakenly assumed to be dead. The mortician cuts his tendons in preparing the body for burial, and the guy gets buried. He can't move, but the story ends with him fully aware that he could remain conscious underground for years to come.
Does anybody know the name of this short stoory?
openBook: Middle aged latina divorcee chosen to meet the aliens Literature
So I read this book 5 years ago or so. It was modernish but I'm not sure how modern. It has this middle aged women who is approached by aliens. They are holograms and under the illusion they look like giant upright cockroaches or something. there is a parallel story about the main alien and his spiritual development and the history of his people. They want to help humanity get to world peace etc, so we can join the federation of planets. They do a giant 100% mandatory survey of everyone on earth and have all these innovative and ironic solutions. Then there is a crisis of faith on their planet because their sacred painting is not what they thought. They are abandoning humanity to man eating aliens but we are all saved by tricks and rootbeer which is a sedative to them. Please help me find it!
openSabrina Tie In Book Literature
It was a novel based on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Sabrina is punished for something, can't remember what, and she is forced to complete a maze in two hours that is filled with references to board games. Definitely had a Candy Land and Mouse Trap room, probably a room based on Perfection and Snakes and Ladders. What was the name of the book? Searching for "Sabrina Board Game Book" gives me a lot of actual board games.
openA novel I read in school Literature
I remember a book I read for independent reading in school. It was about a girl whose legs didn't work, and so she was an outcast in her village. Seriously, her neighbors tried to sacrifice her as a baby because of her disability. It was a pretty depressing book, actually.
openBook of horror stories? Literature
When I was a kid (in the 90s), I had a book with several short horror stories. The one I remember best is about someone who's lost on a road at night and meets a few people, all of whom have no faces—the book described their heads as "as smooth and featureless as an egg". He runs from each one, only to encounter another, but I don't think they were hostile.
I think one story ended with the reveal—or at least implication—that somebody (either the protagonist or someone he'd been talking to) had been dead all along. Another story had something to do with a horse and carriage that were integral to the plot, and the protagonist of the 'egg-people' story had a lantern, so I think all the stories were set in the 19th century. And I'm fairly certain the horse and carriage was the picture on the cover.
The book was physically small—about 7x4 inches and less than half an inch thick. (My guesstimates are probably wrong since it's been years since I actually saw it, but my point is that it's a very small book.)
None of the stories were really super-scary, even as a kid (even as an easily-scared kid, though I got a little creeped out a few times), and IF there were images, which there may not have been, they were only at the beginnings of chapters (a la Harry Potter) and weren't scary at all.
Edited by SyssarethopenNo idea Literature
This scary story is one I remember reading in a book of scary stories, like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but I don't know if it's in that book in particular or even if it was in the same series. I'm looking for the short story in particular, not the name of the book it's from. The story, as I remember it best, goes something like this: a man goes to a party. He has recently lost someone he loved, perhaps a bride or someone he was married to. Somehow, his dead love arrives, still looking like a corpse. She walks up to him, and they begin dancing. After dancing for a while, he dies. That's all I remember.
openStarfish aliens in a ship that suddenly appears around Earth? Literature
A book based around the ship that arrives in Earth orbit, full of strange aliens, mostly non-sapient. They're initially regarded as hostile, but a team starts to find out where they're from by reading pictograms on the walls. They turn out to be from a planet with very high winds, to the point where some of the aliens slide around on a curved spike in the middle of their body (they're shaped like starfish), and trees have roots at each end of the trunk to anchor them. I don't know if it's a whole book or a short story, but that's what I remember about it. Anyone remember it/the title?
openBook about a hippie camp revisited - mystery Literature
In the mid-2000s I would frequent a Barnes & Nobel on lunch and read books like people do at the library. I found one piece of fiction incredibly intriguing but can no longer remember the title. Book was a thriller/mystery. The book's main character was a 20-30s woman returning to the hippie camp in which she'd grown up. Her mother still lived there and had a form of dementia. There is also a young girl that looks a lot like the protagonist did when she was younger (blonde and blue eyed if I'm not mistaken). The book had some mysticism, numerous flashbacks, memories of time spent in a farm close to the camp where there were boys that made fun of her. If I remember correctly, the book ended with the kidnapping of the girl and being found in a clubhouse in the field by the woman. Anyone I have any idea?
Edited by LWFJester
I read this piece in a college literature course (maybe American or European lit). In it the author asks the question to the effect, "Do you know how you have a very best friend, but you don't really know how or why you become so?" For the win, somebody tell me where this came from! Thanks.