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openNo Title Literature
There was a fantasy I read back in grade school. The MC was a boy, but i can't remember his name. There were a lot of characters that appear to be based on celtic mythology(?):
- the washer-woman who washes shirts, and if she holds up yours, you'll die (a plot point!)
- a drac, which goes fishing for humans with jewels on the end of its tentacles
- a madman whose sanity can only be restored if he finds a golden heart of a bird; the MC tricks him into regaining his sanity at the end with a heart he molded
- a witch who has no shadow because the devil came to her classroom, and the teacher said "Devil take the hindmost" (also the name of the chapter), and the girl tricked the devil by telling him her shadow was the hindmost; she later gets burned to death and reincarnated, but loses a finger because the protagonist lost one of her bones
- a dragon which is called a worm; a town is build on the worm's head
- dream mice that crawl out of your mouths when you're asleep; the MC kills the dragon by bludgeoning its dream mouse
- a horse with backwards hooves and loves water; a kelpie?; at the end of the book, the MC uses one to drag away his shrewish sister
Does this strike a bell with anyone? I'm trying to google with all the information I have, but I still can't find anything about it.
openNo Title Literature
I'm looking for a sci-fi novel that was published in the 1990s or early 2000s. It was set in a steampunkish world where space ships that look like old-time sailing ships travel our solar system. The main character was a teenage (I think) girl who stows away on one of these ships. I can't remember much of the plot, except that the girl travels to one of the planets (I think Mars) and meets aliens that look like angels.
Edited by TuomasopenNo Title Literature
ok, this was sometime in the 90's. It was not a Goosebumps book, but it was kids' horror stories. It was more sci-fi/future than anything. A collection of stories; one where a girl used her dad's phone to call someone in the past, and she let this past girl know when she (the past girl) would die.
And there was another one where contact lenses had been developed that were like x-ray vision, letting someone see internal organs. But they hadn't been completely developed. The girl (I think she was an intern in this hospital place) was told NOT to put them on, they weren't approved, but she didn't listen. They melted into her eyes and she went crazy and died somehow.
(Edit: I think the last line of that story was "Well, it seems Miss X didn't do her homework." (X being the name I don't remember. The (nurse? supervisor?) was speaking to the doctor about the now dead girl)
I'm not sure if it was the same book, or another story collection, but I remember one where a boy went in a spaceship to "space camp" and when he was on the way home, the spacebus crashed and he was the only survivor. The only other living thing on this planet was an alien that let the boy imagine anything he wanted. So he could imagine he was back on Earth, but he really wasn't (Kind of like the aliens in the "Home" episode of Stargate Atlantis, but he didn't look like them. And this was definitely a book, pre SG-1 and Atlantis)
Edited by kayleearafinwielopenNo Title Literature
a horror anthology, I can only remember three of the stories:
1. A brother and sister stumble upon a puzzle box, and when they get it open there is a button, with no set of instructions. They argue over whether or not to press the button, and when they do, the story ends, stopping their dialog in mid-sentence.
2. some kids are playing freeze tag and one of the kids discovers that they can actually freeze their classmates. ( I'm aware of the novel Freeze Tag it is similar to this, but not it)
3. a kid gets his butt stuck in an elevator, or something.
The last time I read the book, I was about 13 or 14 so around 2003-2005.
Edited by originalhobbitopenNo Title Literature
it was a book i read about in a magazine . it was a novel set in the sixties that had elizabeth taylor and richard burtons romance during the filming of cleopatra as a topic that the characters discussed . they might have had a book club. the magazine was canadian , so the book might have been . help is appreciated.
openNo Title Literature
A book (possibly by Dean Koontz or similar to his style) where a strange species starts terraforming the earth, using spores/rain that are described in the book to smell like semen (possibly corrosive, i think i may remember something like that in the book where someone gets covered and starts melting,though that may be something like Stephen King's "The Mist" seeping in, which in fact was very similar to this book. the main characters live out in the woods in a cabin or something like it (they first start noticing something unusual when normally vicious animals, either a coyote or cougar hides on their porch), the ships are described as very organic in nature, and somehow it branches out that the aliens aren't (possibly) really aliens, but are demons prepping the earth for the apocalypse, or some strange combo of dimension-hopping alien demon things. Anyone remember this?
openNo Title Literature
This was a short novel. I remember the cover was black with a blue and white dead bird on the front. It was about a young boy who started hearing about missing children and he got really interested in the case. He met a girl who was described as "not pretty in any way"— she was very headstrong, wearing a poncho, and at one point the author said her thick eyebrows were leading the way. The girl convinces the boy to go look for the missing children. They think they've drowned in a pool and *SPOILER* end up getting caught in the pool's tarp. Any idea what this was? I would have read it early 2000s and I don't think it was very old. But I do remember being disappointed it wasn't about birds.
openNo Title Literature
A novel set in a universe where superheroes exist. It focuses heavily on a therapist who works with a group of superheroes. One of the superheroes had the ability to turn other people into duplicates of herself and control them. At one point, she uses this ability to change someone else into a duplicate and has sex with them.
openNo Title Literature
A picture book about a baking prodigy. I think it was shaped more like a kids' chapter book though (more rectangular than square). I completely forget the plot, but when the protagonist is a baby he loves to mix flour and water and make all sorts of shapes. I think later in life he becomes known for making delicious bread that looks like animals, etc. Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's not Walter the Baker by Eric Carle, because I remember the illustrations as being in a different (less bold but very charming) style.
openNo Title Literature
Not actually "literature" but an online article that some of you may have read. I think it was an installment of an ongoing column.
It was about shonen-ai & yaoi and its appeal to girls and women. The article was actually a discussion between 3 people, all female I think. Two were regular contributors while the third was a special guest who knew a lot about the genre. It was a very insightful discussion, talking about how most shonen-ai is unrealistic, features a blatant "female stand-in" character, and rarely acknowledges that the characters might be, y'know, gay.
This article was featured on a big anime news/database site. I remember that it mentioned the series Antique Bakery. I would love to read it again, so if anyone can find it, that would be awesome.
openNo Title Literature
My brother used to borrow a lot of books from the library, and I think there was one that was a collection of short stories.
The first I remember is about a girl who lives with her father (Possibly her other relatives too) and then one day they get a new bathtub at an antique shop that's huge and ancient/ When she takes baths in it, she gets hallucinations about blood coming out of the spout (I remember her father reassuring her it was just rust from the pipes). Then the bathroom gets really misty and someone comes through the mist to murder her in the tub (These might have been hallucinations also) with an axe, and at the end it turns out it's her father. I can't remember if he gets to kill her or not.
Another short story, maybe from the same book... A boy goes to school. I remember the details that he had never dated before, and every day at recess (maybe?) there was a kid wearing a leather jacket with his motorcycle who sort of seduced the girls of the school, who drove away with him. Then one day the boy gets a love interest and there is some flirting, kind of dating. But the boy with the motorcycle takes her away, and the main char. is pissed. So he follows after and I remember this detail that said he had laid her against this rock, and the main character found her dress. It turns out the leather-jacket kid had these thunderbolt kinds of powers, and tells the main character he has them too. At the end they duel, the main char. wins, and it ends with him just kind of hugging her as she stands there naked.
Wow, that took ages to type! I hope someone knows...
openNo Title Literature
This is quite distressing. I had a fabulous picture book when I was, oh, eight or so. It was likely published in the mid to late '90s and was a capitalism allegory that focused around a girl, possibly named Suzy or Lucy, who was jealous that her father went to work everyday with his briefcase (that was very specific in the book), so she starts her own company and eventually becomes president of the world, or somesuch. All of the pictures are mixed-media sort of things, semi-realistic/photographic and semi super artsy.She gets SUPER big headed and says, specifically, "I'm going to raise taxes 200%!" So someone pushes her over a balcony, or she falls, and she (specifically) "falls into the sun," where she is cleansed by the spirit in the sun and goes back to being a little girl who misses her father. The books is all in rhyme and the author was probably an arists who may or may not have been gay. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
openNo Title Literature
A book I read around the early 2000's. It takes place in the modern day and the main character can see and communicate with ghosts. He works as an Occult Detective and in the beginning of the book he is called to someone's house to check out a disturbance in their garage, and finds that it's the ghost of a teenage girl, and he tries to convince her to stop bothering the living inhabitants of the house. I don't really remember anything else about the book, though.
Edited by amazinglyenoughopenNo Title Literature
Hello tropers! What I'm looking for is a book. I read it in the early 2000s and I think it was a young adult novel, though I can't be sure. It centered mostly on teenagers, but there was atleast one adult involved. I only clearly remember one distinct part of the story. The characters are wandering a desert and are running out of water at an alarming pace. One of the characters comes up with the idea of sucking on small pebbles in order to produce saliva. Then they decide that they have no choice but to drink their own urine, but soon realize they only have very little, because they're sweating so much. Then, one of the characters, I think this was the adult, comes up with the idea of killing and skinning a desert fox, not just for food, but in order to drink its blood. The chacacters is able to skin the fox quite expertly, which surprises the rest of the gang because he always claimed to be of royal descent and they wonder why someone which such a background would know how to do that.
Thanks in advance!
Edited by MichelleNLopenNo Title Literature
It's a parody short story (though it may have been a short episode in a longer book) about a writer being asked to write something darkly gothic. So he starts with a rider and his horse out for a stroll in the woods. That turns out not to be dark and gothic enough. So now it's a black hooded rider and his fierce black stallion dashing through the dark and haunted woods. Not gothic enough etc etc, a storm, a murder / suicide or something in the backstory, overwrought purple prose, until finally, after a series of Darker and Edgier changes, the earth opens up and swallows both rider and steed, dragging them straight to hell.
I thought it was a Jerome K Jerome story, but I couldn't find it on google or in my collection.
openNo Title Literature
I remember reading something about an evil video arcade filled with ultra-violent games that made the kids who played them violent. I remember one was called "Road Rage" where you run over people and another called "Heart Attack"(I think), a sword fight where you get points for hacking off limbs but you have to run your sword through your opponents heart to win.
openNo Title Literature
So I once read a book that was a collection of short vampire stories. One story might have been about a girl who's mother was turned into a vampire. The mom came to the house at night, but the daughter wouldn't let her in, and the windowsills had been rubbed with garlic. Another story from the book was about a girl who met a boy at the mall. She said "Bitchin'" quite often, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the boy ends up proposing to her, revealing that he is a vampire. She freaks out I think. Anyone have any guesses?
openNo Title Literature
A children's book, possibly teenagers-ish, about a really stereotypical computer game that seems to be nothing but shooting 2D monsters. The catch is it's incredibly addictive, and I recall the game seems to grow as more people play it, and makes you very aggressive. At some point the gun you use in the game enters the real world, and it sucks someone into the game, possibly. I remember the others have to get into the game by shooting each other with the gun, but it doesn't have a trigger so you have to fire it by just being really really angry. When they're in the game there's a bit of fun to be had with them being 3D and the enemies being 2D. The memorable part was the hate gun, though. And possibly one of their friends end up in the game as some kind of super-enemy they're not able to kill.
Edited by RetrogradeRenegadeopenNo Title Literature
In the early 2000s, I recall reading this one series for young adults about a family of ghosts. It was a brother and a sister, and their dog Saint Bernard. They all drowned one day, and they lived in a house which a new family had moved into. I think the new family's son starts to realize that they exist (something with an object being moved, but I can't recall what). One of the last books in the series I read had to do with the siblings and their dogs getting transported into a video game, and in the video game, they lose their immortality and are in danger of getting hurt or dying. Ringing any bells, any one?

In the early-to-mid 2000s, my local bookstore tucked a little promotional card for a book into my new Nancy Drew. It was written as a handwritten letter from a girl at a boarding school of horror begging her aunt to take her out of it, and ended with her writing that she heard the headmistress coming, then the letter cutting off mid-sentence. At the bottom, it said, "[Title of Book], a story about an [adjective] girl, a rubber boy, and a collection of flying machines (mostly broken)." If anyone knows what book this, I'd love to know! Thanks in advance!
Edited by LadyInGrey