r/whatisthisbook

Looking for a Victorian-era children's story/novel I read as a child, possibly a short story within a larger collection.

The protagonist is an adult man who finds an object (I believe it was a gold plate or disc) near a stream or brook. After this discovery, small creatures (I thought of them as imps, but they may be described differently—some kind of miniature people) begin visiting him at his home. There is also a black mist??? involved at some point???

Eventually he befriends these small beings, and the story culminates in him travelling to or discovering the miniature town or settlement where they live.

There may have also been an element of memory loss or enchantment involved.

I was reading it alongside George MacDonald and Frances Hodgson Burnett, plus some other Victorian children's books, so the language and era felt consistent with that era, likely published somewhere between 1860 and 1910.

I don't know if it was a standalone novel, a novella, or a short story within a collection or annual.

The details are a bit murky to me, since I read this long ago as a child, but any help would be much appreciated!!!

I have very vivid memories of this picture book from when I was a child. Owned and read the book in the early 2000s but it could have been published before that maybe early 90s?
From what I remember of the cover it was very colorful background with a yellow dog on it. The dog wasn’t a very big dog but he looked fluffy almost like a golden retriever or golden doodle but smaller. I remember a page where the dog is crossing a bridge to go into the city. When he gets to the city he meets lots of other dogs, I believe there is a page showing a dance floor with lots of other dogs and another page where there are older dogs knitting. That’s all I can remember from the book but the pages were very colorful and the illustrations covered the entire page. Please someone help me find this book I think about it atleast once a week and I just want to be able to figure it out!!

help me find this book i read a few years ago (maybe even more)

here’s what i remember

it starts off where a scary looking man appears on her couch every night super injured and she stitches him up and he’s always gone disappeared by morning. she used to be a nurse i believe that’s how she knows how to fix him

one day he shows up really bad almost dying from a gunshot or stab wound and she fixes him and before he wakes up she freaks out and ties him up (which he hates because it’s his one fear). while he’s asleep she takes his phone and takes a photo of him and sends it to someone in her contacts. His name is ghost or something. The guy wakes up mad but eventually leaves

she works hard to pay off her brothers debts and one day she comes home and sees her brother beaten up and the mysterious man is there

he says the brother owes him money and the only way to pay it back and for him to live is if she comes and works for him . it starts off as her being the nurse for him and his men.

BIG PLOT TWIST THOUGH!!

Turns out the girl planned this whole thing her meeting him. The brother with the debt isn’t her real brother. her real brother is in a coma and has been for years. The real brother used to work for this gang leader man so she blames him for his coma. The fake brother is really her real brothers best friend who also worked for him. the fake brother actually turns out to be the reason real brothers in the coma!! not the gang leader!

her and the gang leader scary guy fall for eachother and have a steamy relationship.

he finds out that she’s been lying and playing him

Then he tells her the truth that he has been paying her brothers medical bills this whole time and the reason he’s in a coma is the brothers friend who has been lying. The fake brother like holds her in front of him while he tries to kill the gang leader and ends up like throwing the girl and she falls out of a high rise building. she ends up landing a floor down onto their balcony but hits her head and goes into a coma

when she wakes up her real brother had gotten out of his coma and they live together. The gang leader man has disappeared from the city and her life.

she tries to go back to normal life but finds it so boring and she misses the excitement and danger his world brought her so she gets depressed.

at the very end of the book she gets kidnapped with a sack over her head and is placed in a car, when they take the sack of her head she’s in a car with the gang leader man and his right hand man named ghost (i think it’s ghost) and she’s happy

it ends with him saying something like “did you miss me?”

I’m trying to find a children’s book I had as a kid in the Philippines, likely published in the UK or Canada around 1995–2000.

Cover: Thin hardbound, white with a sky blue strip/banner at the top (possibly bottom too)

Content: Cartoonish illustrations, human characters (not animals). Each page has 4–6 panels, each panel with a short sentence or label.

Educational, possibly first words or ABC format, aimed at ages 5–10, not babies.

Most distinctive feature: At the end of the book there are multiple full 2-page illustrated scene spreads. I remember a grocery store and a playground for sure, possibly others.

Art style feels closest to Usborne but I couldn’t find an exact match browsing their catalog.

Not very thick. Hardbound.

Any help appreciated, this has been bothering me for years! :)

So I've been trying to figure out where I got this from.

I read it in a book.

Could've been a marketing book or an advertising book.

The author tells the story about how companies/businesses would call this guy.

Now this guy gets called in to fix the company/business' offers or positioning or something...

And helps to turn around the company.

I could swear they were called something but the short form for the full name of their title was something that has a negative connotation nowadays.

I could be wrong, but the short form for what they were called was "con men."

But they weren't fraudsters or the negative thing this short form of their name was.

These men would get called in, fix offers, turn the company/business around, and get paid a lot of money for this job.

Like back in the early days of advertising/marketing.

Could've been anywhere from the 50s to the 70s. (Just a guess)

If you know which book or publishing I read this, please help me remember where I got it from.

Thanks in advance!

In the novel humanity has gone sterile, like the youngest people alive were teenagers. There’s this teen that I think fishes an old hospital bracelet out of a river and it belonged to this sickly girl from many years prior who was terminally ill. The story goes that the girl’s family was super rich and paid to have a clone of their daughter so they could harvest the clone’s organs to save her, but then the daughter befriends the clone and they run away together. They live in the sewers for awhile eating I think cat food, and eventually the daughter dies from her illnesses. The clone turns out to be the old grandma like character and from her they figure out how to clone other people, and humanity survives through cloned teenagers.

Reposting here, hope that's okay.
Hello all! I am currently looking for a book I remember reading and seeing when I was younger (and I know it made rounds vaguely on the internet/pinterest, maybe? for it being aesthetically pleasing and fun). I don't remember much, or I feel like I'm misremembering things, but I swear there were insects/spiders at the end in a row and that was the concluding number (100 or 101). Decently confident that 1 page before the meat/images of the book and 1 page after were blank blue ones. I don't remember people/humans being a focal point of the book, but I don't know if it was 100% insect/animal themed, either.

Things I have ruled out:
- 100 Hungry Ants (Art style doesn't match, it switched from species/item, wasn't just ants)
- Icky Bug Counting book (Wrong art style, not high enough, not as colorful, etc.)
- 100 Bugs! A counting book (Art style isn't accurate/different cartoony art style, too human focused, ending isn't as my memory recalls/doesn't click)

I tried looking at Eric Carle's stuff, which feels closer, but no books from him seem to be it.

Looking for a book, specifically a comic style one where Einstein and somebody else take you on a trip around the world of science and teach you about different aspects of sciences? I found the book really interesting as a kid but it was at a library I can't access anymore. I believe it had hitchhikers guide in the title, but obviously it wasn't actually the hitchhikers guide. Any help appreciated!

I took a course in abnormal psychology back in 1988 or 1989 in college. I didn’t realize it then, but my professor was introducing us into woo, how to look at beliefs and let go, trust the universe etc. There was one required book he made us read that did all the above. It was almost like a life guide book. It had cartoon like drawings throughout the pages. I remember it changed the way I saw things and I am trying desperately to find this book! I remember it was a male author and it had to be written before 1988. Any ideas?

Ok, my first time posting in this sub. I am trying to remember the name of a book or the name of the series it was in. I first read this book in the mid 1980s(yes I am d as fuck, hence the failing memory.)

The Main Character was a newly graduated engineering student from poland (or of polish descent) who gets drunk to celebrate his graduation and wakes up in medieval Poland where he uses his advanced technological knowledge to create machines to lift the polish people out of the middle ages and help them become a European power so that Poland will not be invaded so often in the future.

I remember he is gifted lands by a polish nobleman and develops a training program to turn surfs into knights in order to strengthen the polish armies at his disposal.

I also remember that he often makes machines that are more intuitive than their 20th century counterparts like a plane that turns right when you turn the wheel right because the control linkages are easier with the tech and materials available to him but constantly moans to himself about such things which is a line I remember vividly as it is repeated several times throughout the book series, "God , I know we're polish but must we do everything backwards?".

The gist is that he slipped back in time due to an error by a time traveling organization from the future who anonymously gift him a sword with a molecular edge made of diamond making it nearly indestructible and able to cut through almost any thin(depending only on the strength of the weilder) this sword is left for him the the time traveling group because the head of the group is a decendant of the Main Character.

That is as much detail as I can remember at this time.

If anyone can help with the title, the name of the series, or even the author's name, I would be eternally grateful.

I'm a public librarian and I had a kid come in today looking for a specific book, but he didn't have the title or author. It is a kid's book about kid wizards and they have a pet fish that drives a car. There is also an evil version of this fish. Google isn't helpful but I know Reddit always has the answer! Please help, I'm determined to find it and will still be adamantly looking. 🙏