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openAnticipation book about insanity Literature
Hello I read a book a few years ago and I don't remember its title. A friend of mine lent it to me, but don't have it anymore and don't remember the title either.
It's an Sci-Fi / Anticipation story set in a near future where mental health is taken very seriously. People are continuously checked for nevrosis or psychosis and sent somewhere (maybe a rehabilitaion center) if judged insane.
The story folows a man and his wife, each one being persuaded the other is becoming insane and delusional. They tries to convince each other of what they thinks is true : one think they are married for many years and the other think they married only weeks ago. Both fear they will have to denounce the other if they didn't success.
The chapters altern between the man and the woman point of view, and we don't know who is right before the end.
I think the title contain the world "butterfly", but I'm not sure.
Thanks for your help
openI don't remember Literature
Many years ago I read a short story that was probably published somewhere between 1930 and 1960. Unfortunately, I can't remember either title or author.
In it, an ordinary young boy suddenly becomes very hungry, eating everything edible he can get ahold of.
After 6 months of this, he turns into a cocoon (explicitly stated to be made of silk) fastened to his bed.
100 days later, he emerges. His description has a butterfly's wings, but a moth's antennae. His body is described as slender and shiny.
He flies away, out the window, over the hill, and out of sight of the family members that have carefully watched over him. He never comes back.
openAlien Kids Book Literature
This was a book I was given by a teacher as a kid. What I remember is the boy (who I believe has a sister) goes snooping around their new neighbors house who he discovers to be aliens. These aliens have learned how to speak English ONLY through watching TV commercials, so everything they say sounds very commercial-like. I don't remember where it goes from there but I remember enjoying it.
openLooking for a specific book about dragons Literature
I'm not entirely sure if TV Tropes is the best place to ask for literature, but since it's the website I know most I figured I'd try here first.
There's this one book I remember reading within the library of my school - it was a book for teenagers (or at least a young/non-adult demographic) that had profiles on a number of dragons in mythology. Each dragon got two pages; one focusing on a full color illustration and another focusing on factoids. I unfortunately do not remember much about which dragons were focused on beyond one eating its own tail / the moon, and one which I believe was named "Beowulf". The book might have been rectangular, being more long than tall. If it helps any, I believe the same publishers/author/whatever also did a book on monsters (ghosts, aliens, Bigfoot-like creatures, etc).
Any info on what the title of this book is would be greatly appreciated.
(Long Due) Edit: The book has been found; "Dragons: Fearsome Monsters from Myth and Fiction".
Edited by Rex-Blanchimont-ZEROopenBook about Time, Atlantis and Immortals? Literature
About 2013-2015, I found a book that was rather interesting. It featured a kid moving to a new place, where his neighbors were an older gentleman and his daughter.
I don't remember a lot about it, but I remember there was a conversation about time, analog vs digital timekeeping, and the kid eventually stumbles upon their secret: they're the last inhabitants of Atlantis, and their house is home to a device that controls time and space (geography) itself.
There's some sort of plot to use a digital timer to destroy the world (or maybe remake it in someone's image, I don't remember), and the kid manages to thwart it using his knowledge of analog vs digital timekeeping, and how digital will always be slightly inaccurate.
If anyone can tell me what this was, or if it even sounds familiar, that would be wonderful. This has been bugging me forever.
open"Be Careful What You Wish For"-type story (SOLVED!) Literature
I'm looking for a book about three kids who go to a kind of fair, they (and narrator, an adult guy) meet a strange man who gives them each one card with a red dot. If they press the red dot and say a wish aloud, the wish will come true. (They only get one wish per card) The first kid, a girl, wishes that people at school would notice her or something like that. Somehow "be noticed" translates as "will start croaking like a bullfrog under certain conditions". The second kid, another girl, wishes that Henry Piper (I think he's her uncle?) would spend more time with her rather than going on trips. Because her exact wording is "I wish Henry Piper would put down roots in [I forget what the town's called] and never leave", he turns into a tree. The third kid, a boy, lives on a farm. His farm's well is going dry, so he says "I wish there was water all over our farm", so his farm floods. In the end they go confront the weird guy who gave them the cards, and the narrator uses his wish (remember, he got a card too) to undo all the damage theirs caused.
Edited by sRAMrelevratopendinosaur book series??? Literature
probably a scholastic series—very edgy but for kids. one of the main characters was a therapod named scarface, who rose to the top of his dinosaur pack over the course of the series. (as you might suspect, he had a scarred face.) one of the books involved a protoceratops battling a velociraptor to the death. all the characters were dinosaurs, no humans.
openThe Unnoticeable Boy Literature
I remember there being a (probably non-canon) Marvel book about a boy who went to Xavier's School and his mutant power was that he could turn invisible. But not in a see through way, more like a perception filter where he's still there and you still see him but you don't notice him at all, sort of like a social outcast with no friends except as a super power. And, unfortunately, he can't turn this power off so he has to go super out of his way to be noticed.
It was all told in the format of a series of blog posts.
openTwo anthro cats get sick one by one Literature
It's an old-looking kids' book, with a sketchy art style, focusing on two anthro cats. I can't tell if they were brother and sister, or neighbours, or what. They both seemed to be somewhere between four and nine years of age.
The male one (I can't remember his name, but I think it began with an "E". Ethan? Edward?) got sick. I don't think they specified what he had, but it acted like either a very severe cold, or a very mild flu.
The female, whose name I do remember — Elizabeth — was jealous of him being given attention and "cold compresses", but then when he gets better, she catches his illness and while she does get that stuff he got, she can't enjoy them.
Then, she recovers, and I remember this part vividly — she's illustrated climbing out of bed with the text "A few days later, Elizabeth was well", and then she says to What's-his-name, "The best part about being ill is getting well," and he agrees.
Elizabeth was ginger and wearing a blue dress, while the boy kitten was grey and wore a yellow shirt and red pants.
openWeird book that was in my Junior High library. Literature
i'm looking for a strange book that made a big impression on me in my early teenhood. I might be misremembering the specifics of the plot in spots, but this *feels* crystal clear in my head.
it's about a kid in a home with his single mother who has just escaped an abusive situation with his dad. they have to move in with his grandpa because he's getting old and is creepy as fuck and hates the kid for reasons that are unclear. grandpa dies, mom struggles to maintain the house (which clearly has something spooky going on in it), life is rough until the kid's dad shows up and maybe murders mom. while escaping the violence the kid ends up hitting a time anomaly and getting sent back to the 30s or 50s — I forget which, but I'm pretty sure it was one of 'em.
he ends up in some sort of weird love triangle with his grandparents as they grow up together. his grandpa ends up ending their friendship and pledging to track down and murder him when they get sent off to war (either Vietnam or WW 2, see the above timeframe confusion) for reasons that escape me but which may be related to the love triangle. I don't remember how it resolves, but it was *real* weird.
I think it was titled Mr. X or Mr. Nobody or something like that, but I've never been able to find a book by that name. This has been on my mind for *years*, so if anyone's able to find it that'd be pretty great.
Edited by MisterBoogalooopenBook from elementary school (please try to answer) Literature
I remember my librarian reading a book to us in elementary school. It was about a girl who bullied kids into doing her homework for her. However, it turned out she was doing this because her brother made her do his homework for him. Does anyone know the book?
Edited by Gamergirl101openFuturistic Sci-fi book [SOLVED] Literature
Multi-main character plotline. Future world where mega-corps have highly advanced AI and private security teams. People don't understand the AI's and seek consultations from an 'ai whisperer'
One character is a fighter/hacker who lives in the slums and finds a cell phone with a mysterious voice who gives him all these instructions and gets him involved in a big scheme he doesn't understand
Another character is a woman who's job I don't remember, she's fighting one of the mega-corps and is protected by another one, private high-tech security follows her around.
Various themes of there being duplicates of people and the characters not understanding why.
The culmination of the story reveals that the phone lady is an AI of the woman character who's allied with one of the uber rich people. And there are other AI duplicates of people.
The fighter guy confronts the uber rich guy at the end and they talk about cloud computing and AI or something.
It was a really good book, and I can't remember any more details :'(
Edited by megmegme223open[solved] unknown Literature
Edit: I used the "looking for a children's book" page on oldchildrensbooks.com as well, and they found the book for me. It was Mirrorstone, by Michael Palin. That the book was named after the macguffin I remember is hilarious and annoying, but I'm glad to have the name of the book that haunted my brainspace.
I'm looking for a picture book. Or at least it had plenty of illustrations in it, but wasn't a full novel. I can't remember the title and I never knew the year it came out. It has a lot of blue/green palettes in the main section of it.
It's about a boy who's a good swimmer, and he's pulled into another world (though a mirror or through a puddle on the ground, I can't exactly recall) by an old man. I think the old man was referred to as "Uncle", but I can't quite remember. The boy is confused, and this girl (with blonde hair?) gives him a dark moss green tunic to wear instead of his regular clothes. He calls it itchy, I think. The old man pulled him into this world to retrieve a small handheld sized mirror from the bottom of a lake/ocean, because he can swim really well. It's some kind of magical but I don't remember if they specified how. The boy goes diving for that mirror, though, and he finds it. But the old man wants the mirror and doesn't care about saving the boy, so the girl ends up saving him and helping him get back to his world. The last page I remember is the boy standing in his bathroom, the mirror over the sink shattered, still wearing that tunic and soaking wet. He's smiling a little to himself and he's holding the mirror cupped in both his hands.
That's the most of what I can remember about the book. I tried searching for it but couldn't find it at all. Any help would be appreciated.
Edited by TegaDrakeopenLooking for a specific book Literature
A fictional book I recall reading about in another book on the history of swords. In this book, the author mentioned a story in which the main character is a sword fighter who was absolutely focused on finding “the perfect cut” and found it towards the end of the story. Does anyone know what this may be referring to?
open(SOLVED: The Fabled Fourth Graders Of Aesop Elementary School) Book About a "Cool Teacher" Literature
So, I remember reading this book that was a collection of short stories about kids in this one teacher's class (no, it's NOT Wayside or The Classroom At The End Of The Hall), and I think each story was focusing on a different kid. I can only recall the contents of two stories: For the first one, it was about two boys who spend library time reading the school's collection of National Geographics (it's not explicitly stated, but it's fairly obvious they want to read them for all the tribes where women don't wear shirts). The teacher hides the Nat Geos in different places each day to force them to learn the Dewey Decimal System. The second one I remember is the last one in the book, where everyone's sad about the end of the year but it's revealed that the teacher will be teaching one grade higher the next year, so they still get to be in her class.
Edit: I've recalled another story that MIGHT be from this book, but I'm not 100% sure it is. So, a student is complaining about having to do "hard" math and wishes that they were still in kindergarten. Immediately after they wish it, someone calls over the PA system for them to go to some kindergarten room. There was an actual, non-wish related reason for it (don't remember what) but when they step into the room the kindergarten teacher somehow mistakes them for a new student and has them join in the class. They absolutely beast through the easy math problems, but then comes "circle time". The teacher has the kindergartners sing a stupid song ("Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, swish your bushy tail"), and then one of the kindergartners get mad when the protagonist doesn't "swish their bushy tail" (ie do the song's associated embarrassing "dance moves"). Protagonist wishes they were back in their normal class, as soon as they do so the PA system crackles to life again and they're called back to class. But when they get back they find, to their horror, that their teacher has taught the class that stupid "Gray squirrel" song!
Edited by sRAMrelevratopenMurdered cat turns into human for revenge (solved!) Literature
This would be a very old Gothic novel—I remember it having one of those great painted covers of a woman in a flowing white gown in front of a big spooky house—probably from between 1940s and 1960s. The premise is that, for whatever reason, one of the villain's particularly cruel acts is killing a cat by dropping it down a well. Then a mysterious, beautiful woman with green catlike eyes shows up and starts systematically ruining the villain's whole life and exposing every terrible thing he's ever done, with the strong implication that the woman is in fact the cat, come back for revenge. The title of the book may have been the woman's or the cat's name.
Edited by BergamotopenSeveral Different Works Literature
So, I was browsing online and I found a bunch of comments of people talking about books they couldn't remember the names of. Here are the ones that really intrigued me:
1. "...a book about a boy turning into a yellow bus. The cover really disturbed me as a kid"
2. Edit: They probably meant a book. "...a story where a girl drank petrol and turned herself into a car."
3.“Some kid discovered a "new letter" for the alphabet. The letter was this white-skinned, living and sentient creature. For some reason the kid has to keep the letter away from people who are searching for it. At the end, I'm pretty sure the letter is taken away or killed”
4. EDIT: Removed for being too vague.
5. "children's book... a kid or teenager who was always on their cellphone being transformed into a cellphone with human features at the end." (Edit: I am not the only person searching for this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=89671&type=ykts
)
Does anyone know what these are?
Edit: One more. "I definitely remember, in a similar fashion, a Kafkaesque version of 'I'm a Little Teapot' which has a child grotesquely morphing into a teapot and having relinquished all that made him human by the final illustration...which is just a dainty teapot sitting on a table surrounded by teacups, saucers, and dishes of lemon slices and sugar cubes."
2nd Edit: I found another one "Reminds me of a story of a boy becoming a tree and gets cut down and turned into a cabinet iirc. Gave me nightmares and got paranoid about the furniture watching me." [The second sentence implies that the story said the boy was still aware as a cabinet]
3rd Edit: "An older cousin had a book about a private school and each poem was about a kid enrolled and how they were actually awful (and how they met their end). This sounds like it could have been one of the chapters... But what I'm seeing in the comments is that there were a lot of books like that, apparently. (The poems I remember were about a kid getting eaten by a living arcade machine with a terrifying illustration and an end line something like "BURP! Pac-Man had an early lunch" and a kid who would torment a dog every day, until one day the dog was loose, unbeknownst to them." I only care about the arcade machine one, and NO, it isn't "Cabinet Man"
Edited by sRAMrelevratopenBook series about a boy and his annoying brother Literature
There were at least two-three books in the series, with a spin-off book about a side character.
The first book (and the only one I really remember) was about the main character, the boy, getting a pet turtle, and how he then has to deal with his annoying younger brother. At the end of the story, the younger brother eats the turtle, however the boy is then given a pet dog as a replacement pet, who he then names “turtle”
The boy lives in a small apartment, and his dad worked for a juice company whose products taste really bad.
openHorse turns into unicorn Literature
There’s this children book I read where this baby horse wants to be a unicorn but takes a fatal fall. They dream they are reunited with the mother. They wake up to find they become a unicorn the mother finds them and the unicorn dies. Yes, it was children story book.

I remember in high school reading a short story about a pair of police detectives investigating the murder of a rock star. As he was dying, the musician grabbed his guitar and broke two strings. The detectives interview the singer's girlfriend, manager, and two of his band members and come up empty. While they're trying to figure out another clue, one of the detectives offers to play a song on the guitar. But he can't because the E and D strings are broken. Just then, the other detective remembers that one of the band members was named Ed and the singer was naming his killer.
Any ideas what this might be?