What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

Hi All,

I am trying to find a copy of Mary Wallace's 1980 book "Angel Rock". Do you know where I can find a copy of it? I've searched on Amazon, to no avail. (I think the Mary Wallace that comes up there is the wrong Mary Wallace.) I've searched at my local libraries and through ILL, also without any luck. I know that the book is old (in book life spans), and that it wasn't a best seller, but someone somewhere must have it. Any ideas and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Angharad wrote: "Hi All,

I am trying to find a copy of Mary Wallace's 1980 book "Angel Rock". Do you know where I can find a copy of it? I've searched on Amazon, to no avail. (I think the Mary Wallace that come..."
You could try abebooks.com they sell a lot of used and out of print books. Good luck!

Are you sure the title and author are exactly right? It's not coming up on Goodreads or Worldcat or Amazon for me. A book from 1980 shouldn't be that hard to find unless it was a very limited publication run.

@Beebs & @Lobstergirl: thank you for your suggestions. I searched goodreads and amazon, and didn't find anything. You're right--a book published in 1980 (or even a little earlier) shouldn't be that hard to find, not today.

I'm looking for it for my mother, who originally read it in Good Housekeeping magazine. They used to (and perhaps still do) publish "complete novels". I hunted down the information (author's name and title of the novel), then proceeded to search for it in my local libraries, on amazon, goodreads, etc., and have been striking out. It is possible that it is out of print, but I think I should still find a record of it somewhere. It cannot have vanished from the face of the earth!

Thanks again for your help.

Maybe locate an index for Good Housekeeping at a really good library? Speak with a periodicals librarian?

http://books.google.com/books?id=WvQx...

Searched google books for "Good Housekeeping" and "Angel Rock" and one result came up. It is from 1980. Kind of hard to read, though....

I wonder if this is the correct Mary Wallace. Google says she did have some books condensed in Good Housekeeping.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Worldcat search on Mary Longstreet Wallace brings up 3 items, none of them "Angel Rock."

You got the author and title right:

Angel rock.
Authors:
Wallace, Mary
Source:
Good Housekeeping; May 1980, Vol. 190, p209
Document Type:
Article
Subjects:
Short stories
Historical Subjects:
Short stories
ISSN:
0017209X
Accession Number:
524295845
Database:
Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson)

I just answered another "complete novel" query for Good Housekeeping from 1980 (weird, huh) and they certainly marketed as complete novels, but this may actually be a short story. Or, it could have been retitled for the PB book market. In any event you can probably pick up this issue off ebay. Good luck!

@Lobstergirl & @Tim: thank you for your suggestions. I was hoping for a book, because I recognized that even though Good Housekeeping touted these as "complete novels", they are often condensed, just as in the 1960's and 1970's Readers' Digest used to publish (in book form) condensed novels.

None of my local libraries nor any of those in our ILL system have older issues of Good Housekeeping magazine (current issues, yes), so I'll try ebay and the other sources you recommended.

The thing is, whenever I think of the condensed books, it means that the complete version was published. I recently found another one of Good Housekeeping's "complete novels" (also from 1980) for my mother, but this time I lucked out. I searched for the book through our ILL service, and another library had the book. Mom is reading it now, and very happy that I was able to find it for her. She had a copy that particular issue of Good Housekeeping, but it was falling apart, had pages missing, plus articles and recipes cut out. She was reading the "complete novel", and couldn't finish it because of the condition of the issue.

I want to find "Angel Rock" for her, and maybe the best I'll be able to do is to buy an old GH issue off ebay. Thanks again for your help.

@Lobstergirl: thanks for the link. GH only listed the author of "Angel Rock" as Mary Wallace, not as Mary Longstreet Wallace, which complicated my search. I looked at the info provided in the link, and that is the correct author, even though "Angel Rock" isn't one of the books on the list. Now that I think about it, "Angel Rock" was part of a series of books, and when I read the description of "Blue Rock", that helped make the connection. "Angel Rock" comes later in the series.
Thanks again for your help!

Ooops! Last post edited to read "Blue Meadow" instead of "Blue Rock" and "Blue Meadow" should be "The Stafford Legacy".

I've been reading some of the brief descriptions of "The Stafford Legacy", and maybe this is the correct title! The plot seems familiar, though some things have changed from the GH issue with the "complete novel Angel Rock". One of the characters in both is called Vincent, one of the other characters joins the army fights a war (in GH, the character is Richard and fights in WWII; in the description of the Stafford Legacy, the character is Greg and fights in Vietnam; Vincent and Richard/Greg are brothers and are in love with the same woman, a neighbor they've both known for a long time. The woman character in GH is called Andrea/Andy; in the book she's called Jenny. There's jealousy and danger and family conflict, so maybe this is the book I've been looking for. None of the libraries in our consortium have it, but I'll other sources. I don't want to spend $50.00 for it on Amazon, and if GH made that many editional changes to it, I think I'd like to try the book rather than the condensed, revised version (though if I can't find it for a reasonable price, then ebay here I come!).

Wow...I was beginning to think that I was imagining things, or that this book was well and truly lost. Thanks so much for all of your help!

No problem.