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resolved [FOUND!!!] a novel from the pov of a blind narrator? Literature
I'm trying to find a novel I read a while back. It might be by an Indian/South Asian author? It's a collection of stories that a blind narrator is told by a series of strangers who sit opposite to him at a restaurant. Some of the stories in the book are about the following characters, from what I can remember:
1. A heir to a kingdom who is a known womanizer until he falls in love with a woman who isn't royalty (she's introduced as being friends with the woman the guy was initially dating at the start of the story) and ends up forfeiting his place to the throne to his younger brother after his parents disown him for marrying this girl. They go to a hotel for their honeymoon and he, attempting to impress her, dives into the pool. He never resurfaces, as red rises to the surface and the girl screams. When the scene cuts back the guy is in a wheelchair, telling his story to the narrator with his wife accompanying him.
2. A kinda dumb guy falls in love with this girl, who cons him into tricking a jeweler to steal a very specific diamond as a proposal ring for her. It's implied that she's done this several times in the past with other unlucky guys that fell for her.
3. A lady who was beautiful but never made it in Hollywood becomes a nurse instead. While caring for a bedridden elderly man whose wife is long-dead and has two kids (son and daughter), she tricks him into rewriting his will so that she could get a cane and a photo of him to keep in remembrance of him, but rewords it such that these items go to his kids and that she gets most of his inheritance. The old man’s lawyer had tried to warn him, but he had been so taken with the fraud that he brushed him off, saying something along the lines of: ‘all she wants are a cane and photo, there’s no need to be so stringent’. But! She also included a clause in the rewritten will to provide large donations from it to several big hospitals and charities. So if the old man's kids were to contest this will they would be hounded relentlessly by these institutions who benefitted from the old man’s inheritance. So they were forced to accept the outcome.
Can anyone please help me with this? It's been driving me insane and I need to know that this book exists instead of being a wild fever dream. Thank you!
Edited by StrayShardopenKids book Literature
I remember a moment when the (teen?) protagonist says that her little sister has been gossiping about her baby brother and the moment involves the baby holding a waffle try ing to give it to her. I know it's a teen book but I don't remember the name.
openBook with child on road trip Literature
A boy is forced on a road trip with his family—two parents, brother, and sister—and he has various awkward experiences like trying Chinese food for the first time, assuming bird's nest soup is just a name but learning it's actually made with a bird's nest, and taking part in a Native American dance where they trick him and his brother into dying their skin to look Native and then it doesn't come off, and a long search for fireworks when the sale of them is highly restricted, ending with a whole bunch of them accidentally being set off at once.
I had this book as a kid but gave it to Goodwill and feel nostalgic for it but have no idea how to find it. I think the name sounded similar to the Bruce Coville book Jennifer Murdley's Toad? Jonathan Something's Bike, maybe? Jonathan Something's Fireworks? Maybe I've just got my wires crossed.
resolved Book about rats Literature
It was a book from the perspective of a rat being tested on in a lab with a bunch of other rats. Not anything graphic like injections or anything, just like mazes and stuff. The scientists taugnt them to read by showing them the letters and the sounds they make. I think the first word they learned was "RATS". Eventually they either were released or escaped from the lab and they found out where they were by reading signs and stuff. I don't remember what happened afterwards
resolved White fog Y.A. Novel *solved* Literature
Im trying to remember a book i read when i was around 13. It centered on this white fog that settled over an area i believe in australia or new zeland. The big twist of the book was that the fog, and the humanoids in the fog were part of the human immune system (not dissimilar to Monster Pulse but its def not that), and had been unleashed by a genetics lab in the center of the fog. There was also a major plot beat about using Morse code to decipher a pulsar into coordinates for the main characters. The book ended with the main characters using some kind of satellite array to send the same message back thru the pulsar i think?
Edited by gert10open[SOLVED] YA fiction book about a girl adopted by three professors? Literature
I remember a lot about this book but I can't find it online for the life of me. It was a YA fiction book that I read maybe around 2008? It's about a girl who was abandoned as a baby but three professors find her and decide to adopt her. One of the professors is a harpist, and there's some side plot thing about her getting a new harp but it won't reach its peak sound during her lifetime. Anyway the girl has a friend who works with horses, specifically this breed that is famous for its ability to stand on its hind legs and hold the pose for an impressive amount of time. This comes back near the end when he's able to pull it off to save a child who accidentally ran underneath his horse's hooves. The main plot involves the girl befriending an elderly woman who is a relative of a girl who bullies her. The bully's family doesn't care about the old woman so they have the MC care for her instead. The old woman used to have a bunch of beautiful jewels, but had to sell them to get by after her husband died. The pieces were very important to her, so a friend of hers sold them for her and replaced them with glass replicas. It's ultimately revealed that he lied—he didn't sell the originals, but gave them back to her along with the money from "selling" them. After the old woman dies she leaves everything to the MC. An aristocratic woman claiming to be the MC's mother appears, and the MC gets whisked off to live with her and sent to finishing school at some point, where she is miserable. It turns out that the aristocrat is secretly in financial distress and is unwilling to risk her status/mode of living. She found out that the jewels were real and that they'd been left to the MC. When the MC finds out about the jewels, she ends up back with her professors. The aristocrat tries one last "I'm super sorry for using you" and the MC gets on a boat with her, finally her friends discover the full truth and yell at her from shore that " SHE — IS — NOT — YOUR — MOTHER!". She jumps into the water and swims back to a happy ending.
There is honestly more that I remember but this is long enough as it is. Anyone remember this book??
Edited by river2629openQuote from book Literature
This is a long shot but I remember reading a book that had a line like "She said I wouldn't know [something] if it stood up in my soup and sang."
openReference? Literature
Hi in the benedetto character page it says that there is a musical adaptation of the count of monte cristo where he's a pretty boy tenor type. ¿What version is that?
resolved (Solved) Kids book about school for kids with powers Literature
A childrens book series I read like 5 years ago about a school where every student had a magic power. The main character had a power called fluxing which is basically shapeshifting but i forgot what she could turn into. Her friend was a boy named Bax or Box who also had flux powers but could only turn into a rock. In her class there was a boy who was always floating and had to be weighed down with bricks, a boy who could see sound waves and had to wear a blindfold, a girl who could make rain clouds, and more that i can't remember. I think one of the books had a baby dragon on the cover even though there weren't even any dragons in the story but i might just be misremembering.
Edited by moefoxesopenplay with "identical twins" Literature
A play by Tom Stoppard, Christopher Durang, or some other absurdist/surrealist writer. Two minor characters are a pair young men, one white and one black, who always appear together and insist to the Only Sane Man protagonist that they're identical twins. In the end it turns out that they are, just not of each other.
Edited by randomsurferopenDid I Mandela Effect a Whole Book Into Existence? Literature
When I was a library volunteer in like 2003-2004 ish, I came across this book I've never been able to find again, even though I remember quite a bit about it, so I'm wondering if I misremembered whole chunks of it or just made it up wholesale?
Anyway, it's a paperback romance. It was a platoon of modern day soldiers (Swedish, or some other brand of Nordic possibly) who time travel to the early medieval period to win a historic battle they originally lost. Because patriotism I guess? Nationalism comes before the space-time continuum apparently lol. They accidentally time travel directly into a nunnery. Shenanigans commence and one soldier and one nun(novice maybe?) fall in love. There is a sex scene involving chocolate sauce.
So does this book exist or is it the horny hallucination if a 14 year old? XD
resolved (SOLVED) A book (part of a series?) about dogs fighting alien cats Literature
About more than decade ago, I read a book (likely part of a series) that combined Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines and Alien Animals: a group of heroic dogs fight evil alien cats. The prologue explains the premise; all cats on Earth are evil aliens hiding in plain sight plotting to conquer the planet, and some dogs (of either a self-titled or larger group, maybe called WOOF? Or maybe that was the name of their ship's Mission Control voice command...) that fights against them.
The main group of dogs has a male leader, a female sort-of co-captain, and one male (maybe a pug since he drools often) who's the Gadgeteer Genius. They reside in a pound and can teleport to their spaceship from inside each of their kennels. The book introduces an insecure Great Dane who keeps getting sent back from being adopted to back to the pound, likely since he's too big to take care of. He's whisked along their latest adventure, in which they find a notorious cat's spaceship stuck in space as it's out of power. A hairless cat lackey winds the key outside the ship (which is shaped like a toy mouse). The dogs lure the ship into their cargo hold with a cheese magnet, but the cat causes their ship to crash-land onto a pink planet, ruled by the said cat's sister.
Details of the rest of the book are a bit fuzzy. But the sister wants their sibling in exchange for something. The dogs instead opt to disguise the hairless cat as its superior by shaving the latter's fur to stick on the former. The dogs make their move, but get ambushed by ninja cats. In their absence, the actual superior cat and the Great Dane are taken from the dogs' ship.
The main 3 find the planet's ruler with the Great Dane beside her throne in riding gear, before she (I think it was her) starts riding the large dog around, and stating intent "to keep as my own personal pony". A "Eureka!" Moment occurs, the smell from the pound coming off the last folks seeing the Great Dane smelt of horses, that get plenty of space for running like a large Great Dane would. With that, the male dog leader encourages the Great Dane to find his courage, and he bucks the cat off and runs with the others back to the dogs' ship. He's offered to officially join the heroic dogs, but gets adopted not long after his return.
I remember most of this book except for the title, I even remember the book cover art, the cartoony Great Dane's worried face to the front (likely in a space helmet) with a navy blue space backdrop behind him. None of the result so far for "dogs fight alien cats" or "book about dogs fighting alien cats" seem to ring any bells. I don't think it's Klawde, which also features an evil alien cat.
Edited by BlackFaithStaropenBook series about spies in a school Literature
So the protagonist has to move to this school for spies after something happens to his parents or something. He's descended from great spies so he has natural talent for it. There were some fantasy elements to it too. Like some sort of knife that never misses a target and the MC's best friend was like a werewolf or angel or something. I remember the title of the first book was an acronym for the school's name. Its been a really long time so my memory of it is really vague.
Edited by ParkwayopenEvil Underwear Literature
I dont remember what it was called. there was a young boy protagonist. he never changed his underwear, so they were all ratty and torn, so his mother took him to a store to get new ones. the pair he tried on were sentient, and decided to use him as a host, and wouldnt come off. so he wore them out of the store and they started controlling his life. thats where the specifics end. anyone else read this book?
openFantasy trilogy I read in school Literature
I'm pretty sure there were three books. Every chapter title was some hilarious statement. In part 3, I think, someone mistook "subtley" for "suddenly".
One of the villains in book 1 was a 10-year-old king who rose to power by murdering his entire family.
The series was a parody of fairy tales, with like four or so different prince Charmings. I'm pretty sure they all had different names.
I hope I can figure out what this series was called, because it's been bugging me for weeks.
openNo Title Literature
A novel or novella written in the first person, entirely as one half of an interrogation. There are only two characters, both men, and the novel consists of everything one of the men says, and nothing of what the other says. As the interrogation progresses, the reader infers the unheard man's reactions and responses based on what the voiced character says.
I heard about this book through part of a lecture that was broadcast on TV Ontario last year. I think the book is set in the Middle East or in some other conflict zone. The original language might not be English. It sounds very intriguing... has anyone heard of it?
Edited by EmbryonopenWhat's that short story with the picture that kills you? SOLVED Literature
The story uses a weapons-grade meme that it refers to as a "Basilisk" to kill a bridge full of officers.
Edited by dvorakopenBook i heard on audible Literature
Characters i remember: luca a little boy A talking dog A pilot who sells tacos
Brent foster a news reporter, his wife and child (disappeared)
A serial killer A pregnant young lady
A mom and her daughter and their neighbors
Ok so i head this series on audible years ago. everyone wakes up to no power and many people have disappeared. There are many story lines. spoiler the dead people are floating down the river. Some flah happened at like 3am and there is like a little group of people who knew it would happen As some of the story line connect i know luca all the sudden grows up like 10 years or something. There are.demon like monster i think they suck the sole outta people
openApocalyptic Tabletop RPG Literature
There was this RPG I heard about on TV Tropes. One where you like, played as spirits and were tasked with killing living people by the powers that be or something.

I remember my grandson taking a book from library about various dragon myths. One was from Ancient Greece, the gist of which dude saves baby dragon from something, and when both are adults dragon save him fron bandits. Anyone know what the book's called, or the myth?