Biblio File

Finding a Volume When You've Forgotten Its Title

Make 2020 your best reading twelvemonth yet. Sign up for the Book of the Day electronic mail, and you lot'll get a daily volume recommendation email delivered to your inbox each morning. Find volume recommendations hither.

Library books lined up on a shelf Bank check out selected results from NYPL Title Quest 2019, held August two, 2019, too as Title Quest 2018.

This is an update of a previous post by Sharon Rickson.

It can be tough to remember the title and author of a book you read a long time ago—fifty-fifty if it was a book that was really of import to you. Fiction is cataloged by author and title, non past subject or plot line, which makes identifying books by just their storyline difficult.

Readers often ask librarians for help finding these kinds of books. And we can't figure out the mystery every single fourth dimension, but we do have a few tricks to help find the reply.

First, pin down everything you lot tin can remember about the book, plot, character names, fourth dimension period in which the book may have been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the book.

Online resources tin help with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all yous accept is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a good identify to kickoff; then, y'all can post to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, last but not least, leave a comment on this postal service!

Before You Beginning

Try Google! Type in everything you can remember well-nigh the volume — as in, "picture volume rabbi animals communication yiddish" — and curl through the results. (That's a real-life instance of a book a patron was asking for: Information technology Could Always Exist Worse by Margot Zemach.)

You lot can also try googling one key detail you recall from a book. One of our librarians solved a volume mystery by searching "USS Y'all-Know-Who" — the name of a boat in the story that the patron happened to recall. (Another existent-life example: She Flew No Flags past Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

  • What's the Name of That Volume?
    A Goodreads grouping with searchable word posts and thousands of questions and answers.

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

  • The Fiction_L listserv
    Stumpers! Search archives of by questions, answered by an intense book-ish community, or subscribe and post a new one.

  • Reddit'due south whatsthatbook thread
    A virtually endless thread of users trying to assist other users think book titles, including several ofttimes 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'due south books here.

  • Big Book Search
    If you can only recollect what the cover looks like, attempt this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library menu)

  • Books & Authors

  • Books in Impress

  • The New York Times databases

  • NoveList and NoveList K-eight (in-library use just)

More Suggestions

  • If you lot can think just one word, utilize the search part on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a item word.

  • Goodreads' browse-able lists of titles that readers have shelved in unique categories, such every bit authors' professions or decades of publication, is also be helpful.

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

How to Movement On

Sometimes, it'due south only not going to happen, and you lot can't detect that elusive book you've been searching for. Information technology'southward okay! Dandy news: The earth is full of great books! Here are a few means to detect more...

  • Check out recommendations from our book experts hither at NYPL. We offer suggestions via web log posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more than.
  • If you'd like a personalized recommendation, find us on Twitter or fill up out our What Should I Read Next? email grade.
  • Desire a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to leave a comment and tell us about a book you're trying to remember! Our library staff members will pop in and check it periodically, and readers of this mail are welcome to make guesses and suggestions.