When you find yourself trying to remember a show (or any works) that's on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach, come here - the collective brain of the TVTropes community can probably help. Post all the details you can remember (examples help). If you're looking for a trope, head over to Trope Finder. Have general questions about tropes? Visit Ask The Tropers!
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openNo Title Literature
This was a book about an ancient Roman (or ancient Greek, but I'm pretty sure it was Roman) man who was a lawyer, solved some mystery of some sort, and ultimately became a senator- I think.
I know for sure that it was an adult book about ancient Rome/Greece, not shying away from any details, and about a man who started as a lawyer. And I don't think it was anyone famous- or as we think of "famous", i.e. not Julius Ceaser.
openNo Title Literature
In the 80s I read a science fiction book about an orphaned girl (I think her parents were killed at the beginning, perhaps for being political dissidents). She and her brother go to an orphanage. Her brother is rebellious and keeps getting into trouble. She wins some kind of state lottery and is freed from the orphanage. She goes to free her brother, but he has been brainwashed (or perhaps lobotomized?). She may then use her lottery winnings to buy a spaceship? I think the title of the book was "Young XXXX", where XXXX is the girls name (and I think it was two syllables), and it may have been the beginning of a trilogy.
openNo Title Literature
I remember a book from school. It was probably YA fiction from the subject matter.
I think I remember that the hero was a boy, young teen or old adolescent. He had some magical powers related to life, the element of Gold, and the roman god Janus (or possibly Jupiter, but I'm almost sure it was Janus).
His enemy was an evil wizard who had a lead amulet marked with the symbol of Saturn that could cast death magic. I think it turned people into lead statues. The boy was the only one who could counter it, and his touch could turn them back to flesh again. I think I remember that it ended up with the wizard's magic rebounding on him and turning HIM into lead, and the boy started to touch the statue's face (in wonder that the ordeal was finally over) and then stopped short, realizing that his touch would release the evil wizard again.
openNo Title Literature
I read a Fantasy book about a half elf women with her fiance named Rory, Roddy, something like that. It was the second book in a trilogy. There was also a subplot about reliving past lives and a large three sided civil war. This book would have been written 20 or so years ago. I am just wondering if this sounds familiar to anyone. Thanks.
openNo Title Literature
IIRC, it was Sherlock Holmes, WITH ALIENS!! - only here, Holmes was the personal assassin of Queen Epiphany I. Any clues?...
openNo Title Literature
Looking for two works that serve as examples for Eyes Do Not Belong There.
1. Someone told me there's a Stephen King novel where surgery reveals an eyeball on the back of someone's brain. It's what's left of his identical twin, whose evil personality later surfaces. I've done some searches and it probably wasn't really by Stephen King.
2. A black and white horror movie where somebody (looks like Lon Chaney, Jr) grows an eyeball on his shoulder. A clip of it is shown in It Came From Hollywood.
openNo Title Literature
A book I started reading some time between 2nd and 5th grade about two brothers. Weather prediction of some sort was a family trait and I think only one of the brothers had it. They may have been raised by a grandfather? I remember them heading off to a Springfield and realizing they had predicted an event in the wrong one. I believe I read it sometime between 1995 and 1999.
Edited by northernspyopenNo Title Literature
I feel stupid for not remembering this, but only about a year ago I read a book aimed at younger readers that I actually remember a lot about, but not the name or character names. It took place during or right at the beginning of the Holocaust, I think it took place in Denmark, and it was about a ten year old girl who had blonde hair and so did her five year old sister, and they had an adult sister who had died at least a year before from a car crash or something, I think their dad didn't live with them. The ten year old's best friend was a Jewish girl with dark hair and they were trying to protect her. I remember a part where the five year old wished they could have cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles again. And a part where the Jewish girl had to pretend to be the other girls sister. And also the girls like lived in an apartment or something. Does anyone remember what this was called?
openNo Title Literature
I'm looking for a somewhat humorous science fantasy novel first published in the '80s. It has a painted cover with a woman blowing a bubble with pink bubblegum. I'd know it in a second if I saw it, but I can't remember the title or author.
It's about someone who becomes noncorporeal and contacts and/or possesses a woman, but he/she isn't literally a ghost. They're not dead, and the whole thing has some sort of sci-fi foundation.
openNo Title Literature
Alright, I put this in the old YKTS and no one answered...
There's a boy who finds out he's a werewolf. The book has the transformation as being all person to all wolf. There's some dude who comes for the boy and tells him about his transformation. The dude is a werewolf with black fur. They head to a restaurant and even though the boy is a vegetarian, he's so hungry that he eats a burger. He's in the werewolf camp, or whatever and they give him a new set of clothes so when he morphs out of wolf form he's not naked. He lopes around with the pack in wolf form and they fall asleep in a dog pile, but when he wakes up they're all human and he notes how normal it felt being piled on top of each other as a wolf, and how awkward it feels as a human. He was shocked at how cruel the pack was to the omega. The omega was a female.
openNo Title Literature
A children's chapter book or YA book about a ghost of a girl who haunted her old house. I'm pretty sure her name was Beryl and that she'd died by falling off her bike and hitting her head. I think the protagonist was the girl who now lived in the house, and maybe she had a brother who was in on it too? The ghost makes a lot of trouble for them and I think they kind of take it upon themselves to put her soul at rest or whatever. I think I remember a scene where they'd arranged for Beryl's now-grown-up family to come around for dinner and it ends up being a disaster because Beryl loses her temper over something and trashes the place.
openNo Title Literature
This is a fantasy book. The protagonist is a little girl who can take objects out of books. Like, if the book has the word 'apple' in it, she can take an apple out of the book. The plot is about two old men trying to get something. The girl teams up with one of them. I remember there's a room full of books. I think the little girl's dad is in it? It ends with the two old men admitting they used to be friends, and they make up. In the next book (or maybe later in the book?) the old men join forces to fight something evil.
openNo Title Literature
I have two:
- A YA book I read for a report in middle school. I barely remember anything about it except that there was a group of kids who were in the woods for whatever reason (lost?), and I think there was a motorcycle gang they had to avoid? I literally only remember one scene that was probably at the end of a chapter, where they're all talking or arguing and then they hear the sounds of the motorcycles through the trees and it shuts them up. Or something. Sorry. I just have the leftover mental image in my head and it drives me crazy sometimes.
- A short story we read, also in middle school, as part of a "man vs. nature" unit. It was a Western (I remember having "mesa" as a vocab word for the nine hundredth time) about a guy who's supposed to be bringing a flock of sheep somewhere with an older partner, but at the beginning he shoots the partner so he can do the job on his own and get paid both their shares. The rest of the story is about this plan blowing up in his face. It ends with him falling off a ledge onto a rock and breaking his back (I think he was trying to get to a tree growing near it because he was out of water). I remember it as being pretty graphic about his dying agony.
openNo Title Literature
I half-remember a science-fiction book. The title was "Bad Moon Rising" or "Dark Moon Rising" or something similar. (Searching on Google and Wikipedia has resulted in a large number of things that match those titles but are not what I'm looking for).
The plot is that a group of aliens come to Earth and wish to speak to the President of the USA. The problem is that the USA was invaded by China years ago, so the USA (and therefor the president) no longer exists... So a simple farmboy is "elected" president overnight and sent to meet the aliens. He travels to their planet and finds out that they intend to "help" the USA by destroying China, and also learns that every other alien race they've ever "helped" has been completely obliterated. (So he has to stop them, which he does... but you have enough to recognize the book by now if you're familiar with it.)
openNo Title Literature
I'm remembering a book that I read in 8th grade that I really enjoyed, but I can't remember the title. The premise was a woman hiding on a pirate ship, and eventually getting sent to a lady's school (where she accidentally sets it on fire.) She falls in love with a boy on the ship (and they sleep in the same cot and almost go further), but the captain can't stand her adn wants her off. I think the two are siblings perhaps. The main character's name (or her lover) was Jaime.
The title had "blue" in it somewhere, that I do remember. It definitely wasn't Charlotte Doyle.
Thank you!
resolved No Title Literature
This is a book I read as a kid about the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. One section of the book had pictures and descriptions for various hypothetical other planets, like a low-gravity one, a high gravity one, a jungle one, an ice one, and a gas planet where life floated around in the atmosphere. The illustration from the latter was used for the cover, showing a whale/manta ray type creature on a bluish background.
openNo Title Literature
I was passing through an airport recently, and saw this book in one of the stores, in the fantasy section. I thought the title was "Tide Storm", or something like it, but apparently I was wrong, as my searches aren't finding anything close to it.
The cover was reddish and depicted some kind of scenery. What I remember from the back of the book is some mentions of war and - I think - some kind of fantasy world. I realize this isn't much to go off of, but any help would be hugely appreciated.
Additional cover description: There were some buildings on the front. They don't really stand out; the scenery just kind of blends together in a sunset-red haze. The scenery, or at least the redness, extends to the back cover as well. The whole cover is primarily red.
Edited by TwiddleropenNo Title Literature
This was a book I read the back-cover blurb on and wanted to research more when I got home, but I forgot the title/author. It was about some kids (two boys and a girl) playing a D&D-style game. One of the boys wants to quit and start a new game but the girl doesn’t. The thing is, the characters they created become real and begin to fight to make sure their world isn’t destroyed.
Is this ringing any bells with anyone? I seem to remember it was called something like Gameworld or Gameland.
openNo Title Literature
Ok, so this is incredibly vague and odd. Around 2004 I remember reading a young adult fantasy novel, it was in the new book section of the library and it seems it just came out. It was about these teens or preteens, a brother and a sister who wandered in a forest and met some kind of magical creature, I think they were elf-like. I vaguely remember there were these things that were valuable to the creatures and I think they looked like golden leaves or candy wrappers. It turns out their dad worked for the creatures in the past and they called him a 'thrall'. I also remember a gang fight in a mall involving a thuggish friend of theirs.
I saw this book at a Borders about 10 months ago and read the first chapter before I had to leave. I think it had a red cover with a white tree on it, though I'm not sure. It was set in WWII era England, and the protagonist was a preteen boy. His mother had died, and his father read a lot of newspapers, but he read fairy tales to remember her. From the back of the book, I would guess that the stories came to life at one point, but I only read like 20 pages... It probably didn't come out before 2005, and I think it won an award or two.