Low Profile Julian What Are You Reading Books Again

Finding a Book When You've Forgotten Its Championship

By

Gwen Glazer, Librarian

November 22, 2017

It can be tough to remember the title and writer of a book you read a long time ago—even if it was a book that was really of import to y'all. Fiction is cataloged by author and title, non past subject or plot line, which makes identifying books past only their storyline hard.

Readers frequently ask librarians for aid finding these kinds of books. And we can't figure out the mystery every single time, but we practice take a few tricks to help find the reply.

Get-go, pin downward everything y'all can call up about the book, plot, character names, fourth dimension menstruum in which the book may have been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the volume.

Online resources tin can help with your search for a half-remembered book, fifty-fifty if all you have is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a good place to start; then, you tin can post to a listserv or give-and-take forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, last but non least, leave a annotate on this post!

Before Yous Start

Attempt Google! Blazon in everything yous tin remember about the volume — every bit in, "motion picture book rabbi animals advice yiddish" — and curl through the results. (That'southward a real-life instance of a book a patron was asking for:It Could E'er Be Worseby Margot Zemach.)

You tin can also endeavor googling 1 key detail you lot retrieve from a volume. Ane of our librarians solved a volume mystery past searching "USS You lot-Know-Who" — the name of a gunkhole in the story that the patron happened to retrieve. (Another real-life example: She Flew No Flagspast Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

• What'south the Name of That Volume?
  A Goodreads group with searchable discussion posts and thousands of questions and answers.

• Name That Book
  A LibraryThing group of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-side by side — who help solve book mysteries via threaded discussions.

• The Fiction_L listserv
  Stumpers! Search athenaeum of past questions, answered past an intense volume-ish community, or subscribe and mail service a new i.

• Reddit'due south whatsthatbook thread
  A almost countless thread of users trying to help other users remember book titles, including several frequently requested books. Especially good for scientific discipline fiction and fantasy.

• "Stump the Bookseller" blog
  A cool indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains extensive, searchable athenaeum — and offers a $4 service for personalized help. Lots of children's books here.

• Big Book Search
  If you can only recall what the cover looks like, try this embrace-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library card)

• Books & Authors

• Books in Impress

• The New York Times databases

• NoveList and NoveList K-8 (in-library utilize only)

How to Move On

Sometimes, it's just not going to happen, and you can't find that elusive book you've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The world is full of slap-up books! Here are a few ways to find more...

• Check out recommendations from our book experts here at NYPL. Nosotros offer suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
  
• If you'd similar a personalized recommendation, find united states of america on Twitter or fill up out our What Should I Read Next? electronic mail form.
  
• Want a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to go out a annotate and tell us about a book you lot're trying to remember! Our library staff members volition popular in and cheque information technology periodically, and readers of this postal service are welcome to make guesses and suggestions.

More Suggestions

• If y'all can remember just one word, use the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to detect long lists of titles with a particular word.

• Goodreads' scan-able lists of titles that readers have shelved in unique categories, such as authors' professions or decades of publication, is also exist helpful.

• For recently published books, the reviews in Booklist Online are cleaved downward by detailed genre.

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Source: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22/finding-book-forgotten-title?page=1

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