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Welcome to Stump the Bookseller by Loganberry Books!

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Welcome to Stump the Bookseller blog!

Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember.

In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course.  It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee.  Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.

Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder.  Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?

Featured post

G Mail Concerns

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Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well as we approach the holiday season.  It has come to my attention that G Mail often does not let our e-mails through.  For those using G Mail accounts, if you have submitted a Stumper and have not received an e-mail from us after a few days, please check your spam folder prior to contacting us.

Thanks and take care,

Julie

376Z: Help me find this YA book I loved

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From what I can remember of the book it took place in a village in the woods. In a time where there was no technology. The main character was a young adult girl. People were getting murdered in their homes during the night by something supernatural they assumed. At one point there is a romance with the main character and this boy out in the woods somewhere. From what I remember, it was a fairly gory book. I’m still trying to piece together my memories of it so if I think of something else, I will send it to you all.

376Y: The whodunit on the estate

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I have been trying to remember the name of a book I likely read in the early 1990s but could have been published much earlier than that. Every time I describe it to someone they guess it’s The Westing Game, but it is not.
A girl is invited to her aunt’s house for a visit. The aunt is married to a prominent and rich man (possibly a journalist? He is someone the girl is aware of and admires) who is throwing a party at his estate for a large number of famous friends. Once the guests are assembled it’s revealed via clues that the man has knowledge of something unsavory from each of their pasts (including his wife’s) and is blackmailing them.
That night the man is murdered and the book becomes an Agatha Christie style whodunit, knowing that the murderer must be one of the people in the house. The girl is able to learn about all of the guests and eventually solves the murder – the killer is a loyal housekeeper who doesn’t want the aunt’s secret to get out.
My son is now approaching the age I was when I read the book (probably 10 or 11?) and I’d love to find it for him since he enjoys mysteries but I cannot for the life of me remember the title, nor track it down with any kind of “books similar to the Westing Game” style searches.

376W: Vampire Tosca

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I’m looking for a vampire novel published between 1970-1989.
The plot revolves around a vampire who runs some kind of sleep disorder/research clinic on a college campus and uses that to cover for feeding (not enough to damage the subject). There is a detective, I think named Tosca, after the opera, who figures it out and confronts the vampire, who is a good guy. They maybe join forces to combat another vampire?  There is a sequel, where the main character has moved to the southwest. Help, please!

376V: Book full of music

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I have neither the title nor publisher, but expect the copyright was 83 or 84.
The book had titles, lists of composers and performers, lyrics, melodies, bass lines, accompaniment voices, and chord specifications (such as chords suspended with their fourth, dominant seventh chords, and polychords such as F/C).
The table of contents included the following:Elton John: Empty Garden/Hey Hey Johnny, I Guess That I Why They Call Itthe Blues,  Sad Songs Say So MuchHall and Oats: Man EaterDuran Duran: The Reflex, maybe New Moon on MondayCyndie Lauper: Time After TimeThe Police: Every Breath You TakeUnknown: You Don’t Bring Me FlowersSondheim?: Send in the Clowns
There were on the order of 25 songs in the book.
Note that this book came out and was bought along with Rush Complete which has a 1983 copyright probably by my Mother, Marjorie Belle Miller-Harris, in 1983 or 1984 from Jack’s House of Music in Sacramento, Ca, a business which has since gone out of business.https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/rush-complete-volume-1/9642330/vintage/?vid=728149246&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_everything_else_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=593719077582&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsoe5BhDiARIsAOXVoUsx7_YXGNRFwPgXfS9MSFJODtq7VudDQyXeuSa4GHAt9WRrfWYeq5waAhF5EALw_wcB

376U: Seeking a YA book written before 1978

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I’m so hoping you can help me.
My friend would love to find this beloved book.  She read it in 1978 while living in a kibbutz in Israel, and believes it may be  a book by either a U.S. or English/UK author. She believes this because there were women from the UK who brought books to Israel for the children/young people in the kibbutz to enjoy.

The plot is as follows:  a college-aged girl becomes ill and is hospitalized for a long time.  A hospital employee (might be a doctor, nurse, orderly, or someone else) tries to cheer up the hospitalized patients.  It then turns out that this person is stealing jewelry from the patients.  
Further details include the college student describing a man who cat-calls her, as a “wolf,” and the girl likes horses.

376T: 12 Days of Christmas parody (Solved!)

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I came across this website while trying to search for this book from my childhood. I do not know the title of this book. All I can remember is that it is a 12 days of Christmas parody. That there were monsters in this book. It had to been published before 1996. It was a colored illustration book.

The world works in mysterious ways. A line from the book came to me today and when I searched it, an article from The New York Times archive popped up. Published in 1977, Joel Schicks The Present was there. This was the book I’ve been searching 10 years for.

376S: Pilot hidden in attic (Solved!)

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So I read this book in 2020 or 2021 and I believe it was written roughly around that time. The author is a woman with a unique name (which for the love of cheese, I cannot recall) and her bio said she lives on an island off the coast of England (could be Channel Islands) or possibly coast of Australia! Oh man, I’ve really forgotten!

The story is written first person from the perspective of a girl as she grows up, and then also as she is an adult. I forget how her father died, but I think he was on a boat at sea and never returned. The girl is sent to live in a house on the coast with a woman guardian, who is not her mom or stepmom, and their relationship is curt. There is a creepy male family friend who drives up every other week or so to check in on them and I think gives them money.
At some point, a German pilot crashes his plane into the ocean, swims to shore, and comes to their house. They help him and hide him in their attic. As I recall, he speaks little English. The little girl develops a loving sweet relationship with him, and he teaches her to draw. The girl’s guardian woman falls for him, and the little girl feels jealous of their relationship.  At some point later in the book, the creepy man is coming over and the girl is upset with her guardian, and intentionally leaves the door to the attic open where the creepy man will hear them talking. The creepy man discovers them and basically tells the man to walk into the ocean, knowing he will not survive the freezing water.
In the meantime, in the present, the now  adult little girl is planning the day she will die and leaving a note for her neighbor letting him know. She is visited by a teen girl who is sitting on her fence (and I think she is the daughter of the creepy man and her guardian). I know it’s complicated!
The grown little girl does end her life as she planned, but it’s not graphic or violent.
I cannot remember any names, but I think the time is WW2 because of the German pilot.
Thank you so much for any ideas! I’ve searched so many searches and authors and come up empty.

376R: Looking for a book based on the Affair of the Necklace

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Here are things I remember about the book I’m trying to locate:

  1. The title may have something about killing the husband. If not the title, around the first paragraph, the narrator talks about how she murdered her divorced husband’s new wife.
  2. The book is a modern take on the story of the Affair of the Necklace. The wife in the story is a big fan of Marie Antoinette and the story of the necklace.
  3. The wife was a waitress, then became the mistress, and then the wife of an older wealthy man. They live in some rich enclave like the Hamptons.
  4. The wife is a big contributor to an art gallery. Her husband thinks it’s stupid to make such big donations and threatens not to make good on their most recent promise.
  5. The husband has had a heart attack and is not allowed to be too active.
  6. The first wife’s friend introduces her to a French woman who’s staying with a friend but doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood.
  7. As a kindness to her friend, the first wife invites the French women (“Frenchie”) over for lunch and she and the husband discover a mutual fondness for backgammon.
  8. The wife’s friend warns her to keep an eye on her husband, but she’s convinced he couldn’t fool around if he wanted to.
  9. Of course, the wife hears a noise in the pool house, and catches her hubby dying after having sex with Frenchie.
  10. The will is read, and the wife is essentially written out of the will. Meanwhile, Frenchie is left everything.
  11. Time passes, the wife loses her home and eventually runs out of money, and has to take a job selling carpet. Her rich friends go on with their rich friends and many befriend Frenchie who is throwing money around to social climb her way into society.
  12. The wife tries to set up an auction where she will have a friend anonymously bid on a necklace like Marie Antoinette’s that she knows Frenchie covets – to raise the price. But Frenchie doesn’t take the bait, and the wife’s friend is stuck with the necklace that the wife will have to buy from him.
  13. The wife – as a last ditch effort – spends the last of her $ to throw a soirée only to find out that Frenchie has scheduled one for the same date and time. When no one shows up at her party, the wife sneaks into Frenchie’s party and pays a waiter to spill the dessert all over Frenchie’s vintage designer dress. The French lady just laughs it off.
  14. The wife finds out from a friend who lives in France that French was married and probably drugged and killed her husband who was the wife’s French friend’s son. The friend shows her some sleeping pills that she thinks were used.
  15. When she returns to the US, the wife runs into a woman who could be the twin of the French woman. She convinces her to pretend to be the French woman and sign a document giving back everything she inherited back to the wife. The wife is going to drug the French woman and push her off the balcony.
  16. The plan works, but it looks like suicide; the French woman leaves info about how she had cancer.
  17. The wife gets everything back, pays the lookalike, who is a little ominous about the info she knows and what she could do w/it.

That’s the book.

Thanks for all your help.

376Q: In Search of the Amulet (Solved!)

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I’m hoping you can find my book….I really don’t want you to be stumped 🙂
(I think) the title is ‘In search of the amulet’
(I think) the author’s first name is Susan, and that she is English.
The book is likely to have been written in the ’70s or’80s, but I’m not certain.
Its a non-fiction story of her solo travels across Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (and other places) in an attempt to find the origins and meaning of the common fringed triangle symbol (amulet).