Play Book Tag discussion

Calling all book detectives! I thought a thread would be fun and useful for help in finding a book that we read but can no longer remember the title to.

Many of us have long and full reading lives and have read any number of books. Sometimes something jogs our memory about a book we have read once, but can no longer remember the title to.

Enter your queries and detective work to this thread.

Okay, here is mine, I started reading The Last Garden in England and it made me remember I had read another book with a female garden designer from the late 19th early 20th century. After some research, I think the designer was Gertrude Jekyll.

I'm not sure when I read it but would guess the late 80's or 90's.

I don't remember the plot at all. Does that ring any bells?

I have no inquiries yet or help for Booknblues (sorry 😥) but just wanted to say, great idea!

Ann R wrote: "There is a book called Gertrude Jekyll on Gardening that was published in the 1960s. Do you think that might be it?

Otherwise I was thinking about Beatrix Potter but ..."

Thanks, Ann, I'm thinking of an historical fiction book, it might not have named her but included a woman who designed gardens.

What a great idea! In fact I have been pm'ing with Meli about spooky short stories and have been trying to remember title or author of one set in someplace like India among Brit ruling class where a native worm crawls into the ear of a character...possibly put there by a rival to kill him seemingly naturally...because the worm bores through the brain and crawls out other ear eventually. There is an ending that still gives me nightmares.

But....can't ID it. Thought it was a Somerset Maugham short story. Nope. Google searchs and scanning classic short story collections come up empty. I am starting to think it was a Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.

Yet I still think it was a short story. Maybe I need to check Kipling or Robert Louis Stevenson.

Theresa wrote: "What a great idea! In fact I have been pm'ing with Meli about spooky short stories and have been trying to remember title or author of one set in someplace like India among Brit ruling class where ..."

Theresa, that gives me the chills just thinking about it. I know, I never read that one, because I would remember it.

I am listening to Anderson Cooper’s book about his Vanderbilt ancestors and I seem to remember some nonfiction book I read decades ago about the Astors, Vanderbilts, Newport mansions, etc. But I don’t remember the name. (I have been to Newport and toured some of the “cottages” as they called the palatial homes full of European art and architecture.

Probably nobody will know what book that was but I thought I would ask.

Booknblues wrote: "Theresa wrote: "What a great idea! In fact I have been pm'ing with Meli about spooky short stories and have been trying to remember title or author of one set in someplace like India among Brit rul..."

OK, I found it and it is a tv episode not a short story. But brilliantly written horror by Rod Serling. From 1972 Night Gallery Season 2, the episode called The Caterpillar. There is a twist at the very end that makes all that went before look tame. This review and summary does NOT spoil end. https://thewordwebzine.weebly.com/tv/...

I think that was the episode that turned me away from horror unless just gothic.

The literal earworm also appears in the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Theresa wrote: "OK, I found it and it is a tv episode not a short story. But brilliantly written horror by Rod Serling. From 1972 Night Gallery Season 2, the episode called The Caterpillar. "

I'm gonna have to seek that out!

Robin P wrote: "I am listening to Anderson Cooper’s book about his Vanderbilt ancestors and I seem to remember some nonfiction book I read decades ago about the Astors, Vanderbilts, Newport mansions, etc. But I do..."

Robin, I doubt this is it-but here goes The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home

Joanne wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I am listening to Anderson Cooper’s book about his Vanderbilt ancestors and I seem to remember some nonfiction book I read decades ago about the Astors, Vanderbilts, Newport mansion..."

Thanks, but I see this is from 2017, I read this book literally decades ago. It may have been as far back as high school for a nonfiction book report!

Robin P wrote: "The literal earworm also appears in the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan."

Now THAT is the stuff of nightmares!

I know this one is a 19th century classic because I studied it at University, but it's about shopping and/or the main character is a popular author. It's a good comparison piece to New Grub Street by George Gissing. I think it may be The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola, but am unsure, it could equally be The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens as I remember studying that as well in the same module. (both books I've named were studied at the same time). Or it might not be these at all!

Does any of this ring any bells?

Jenny wrote: "I know this one is a 19th century classic because I studied it at University, but it's about shopping and/or the main character is a popular author. It's a good comparison piece to New Grub Street ..."

Looking at New Grub Street description... have not read it ... I would say The Old Curiosity Shop is closer to it than the Zola. The Zola is really about the rise of the department store and its impact on society and the rise of the bourgeoisie.

Another option is either a Henry James or a Trollope.

There’s not actually much shopping in The Old Curiosity Shop. The Ladies Paradise is all about it.

This book has haunted me for a long time. I got it from Borders on a table with other trade paperbacks with nice covers. I read it in the early 2000s, and I believe it was set in the mid 1900s, during a time when women wore dresses (and maybe hats) when they traveled on a train. The main character is a bookish boy, who lived with a nice ladylike mother in a northern city (could be either coast or neither). The father dies (or something), and I think the mother might be sick or looking for work. She brings the boy on a train to a small town/rural area to live with his country cousins. There might be some farm animals. The kids are strong, hefty, dirty, and active, while the bookish boy is not. They make him sleep on the back porch I think.

The best part was when he starts exploring the train tracks, meets an older boy (or young man) who teaches him how to jump on the trains. He meets the boy's friends or family in a nearby area, and something really interesting is going on there. (I feel a Secret life of Bees vibe which might have nothing to do with this book.). At the end of the book, he is adopted. The new mother might be his teacher, and the father is a serious bank-manager who is prominent in town (or considers himself to be).

This is not Orphan train. The mother escorted her son on the train, and I think he went on the train to visit her. He might have learned some town secrets on the train by overhearing a busybody type woman. But the trains do play an important role, and the people he met on the trains might impact the ending.

Any suggestions?

Isn't it funny how there are stories that we remember, may want to read again, but can't remember enough to find them once more?

I do want to tell all of you that you often can find that book again. I did a few years ago. There was this wonderful story I read in junior high (back in the Dark Ages, it was not middle school but junior high school - a title I think preferable as it suggests preparation for the next level of your life). It had a girl visiting a house in the country where she met several ghosts who couldn't rest until some mystery was solved. I knew Sherwood was in the title. It was also an old publication when I read it so I knew it was likely OOP. I spent years trying to find that book which was OOP. Thanks to the Internet, I not only found the title/author, but discovered it had been reissued and I could buy a copy - The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope. It was just as wonderful on rereading as I had remembered.

So these 'lost books' can be found again.

There are book dealers who specialize in this. There is one for children's books who helped me find a book I loved, called Pitcher and I. It was hard to search for because so many books about baseball pitchers came up. (Pitcher is a nickname because of the phrase "little pitchers have big ears", one of many old-fashioned things in this book.) It didn't help that I remembered the title as Pitcher and Me. It is set in a boarding school in 1950's-60's and I found the relationship of the main 2 boys very sweet. There is also some humor. I don't remember now the name of the company but an actual person was emailing with me and she was an expert on chldren's books.

There is at least one group on GR called What was the name of that book? or similar.

I have been searching for a historical fiction book which I read, I think in the 1990's. It is set partly in NYC, but also other New York settings, with short stops in Elmira, Lilydale and a lengthy one in a mansion along the Hudson.

The time I believe is the 1890's and the Fox sisters make an appearance although I believe they are renamed. It has quite a bit about spiritualism and seances.

Does this ring any bells for anyone?

Ach, no....but definitely something I would read.

However, I will keep my eyes open....and when in Owego, stop in River Row Books which is a new and used bookstore with a section on books set in the region and NYS.

I have been trying to locate a book I read in the 1980s...probably published then - it was a mass market paperback. It was a time travel book back to turn of 20th century Greenwich, CT and NYC. Teddy Roosevelt and forming NYC first police force appears and the wealthy were buying homes in Greenwich as 'summer' places ... there was probably some mystery. One of the twists was that all tge wives being set up as the socially superior matrons in Greenwich were former Ladies of the Night in NYC.

I thought I kept my copy but have not been able to find it.

I rememnber the book had a white cover, a daugerrotype image and a big title in old gold color, ornate alphabet. You'd think I could remember the title....nope.

Theresa wrote: "Ach, no....but definitely something I would read.

However, I will keep my eyes open....and when in Owego, stop in River Row Books which is a new and used bookstore with a section on books set in ..."

The former owner of that shop was the person who came to our farm in 2005 to assess my brother’s book collection before he donated it to Binghamton University ( formerly Harper College).

@Robin - Isn't it pretty amazing how our and our family's paths bumped against each other and it took PBT to have us meet!