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364F: Greek/Roman epic – a tough one!

Hi there! Been looking for this for YEARS. Please bear with me as I read it in the 90’s and you know how memory goes.

Read it as a paperback. NOT a bodice ripper like romance. Was a Greek/Roman epic. NOT the book Empress of Rome. From the perspective of a prostitute from when she was a girl through adulthood and old age. Not necessarily first person but maybe. She went to a courtesan-like school to learn the arts- painting, singing etc. I only remember like two very specific parts of the story.

**TRIGGER WARNING- Weird old school brothel tricks and sex talk**

She “ruins” herself or some such thing with a man and she needs to be presented as a virgin to some old guy or important man whatever. There’s a part where an older woman has her put a chicken egg filled with blood or something up there so that when the chicken egg breaks during sex it’ll appear as though it’s hymen blood. Don’t ask why that stuck with me, it just did.

There’s a bunch of intrigue and scandal. A bad guy is in it for sure. There’s a bunch of parties and a nice old guy painter I think. And the prostitute/courtesan is very well renowned. She falls in love with a younger soldier and eventually is together with him for years. At the end of the book she’s dying in bed and he’s holding her hand and she dies with a smile or some such thing because he had no idea how old she was because she took such good care care of herself.

Pretty thick book. Cover had a Greek/Roman depiction (maybe a man and woman? maybe a Greek building in back?) and was creme colored for the most part, I think. Had maybe a bit of red and black lettering. Books was very much late 1960’s-1980’s

I really hope you can help!! Thanks so much

364E: YA Book about Faking Seances

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I’m looking for a book I read in the mid-80s about a boy who helps fake seances during the Spiritualist movement and has a moral dilemma about whether or not it’s right to do so.

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?

364D: Children’s or YA Science Fiction—Girl goes to Mars, is orphaned during trip (Solved!)

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Read this hardcover from the library in the late 70s. Teenage girl with dead mother, lives with her aunt or grandmother but spends summers with her dad. When girl is near the end of high school her dad announces he has a wonderful opportunity–he has to make a trip to Mars, and he can bring along one person, which will be her. She doesn’t want to go because she had her next few years all planned out and it will be a year or more before they get back. She sulks and yells, but is told she IS going. On board, her poor attitude does not win her any friends or allies among the people she meets. There is a small group of other children and young people on the ship, but she alienates them with her constant complaining and her attitude that people who live on Mars are backward and ignorant. One young man who is returning home to Mars takes on trying to improve her attitude as a personal challenge. When her father dies during the trip, leaving her with no return ticket, the young man’s family unofficially adopts her and helps her adapt to Mars. She enrolls in college there, and generally drops her snobbish, “Everything Earth is superior” viewpoint. I think at the end of the book she is faced with the one-time chance to return to Earth, or to stay with the people she has come to think of as her new family. There was probably a romance between the girl and the boy who “adopts” her.

I think it was shelved near the Beverly Cleary books, so author’s last name probably began with either C or a letter close to it.

364C: Woman and Husband Separated By Plane Accident, She and Others Survive on Island

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I was reading a book on my Kindle, and it just disappeared and does not show in my history. I’ve tried searching through google but can’t find anything.
The book was about a couple who decided to go on a vacation for a honeymoon they never had. The husband’s name was Chris. They flew out of O’Hare to LA. The flight was delayed because of snow so they just missed their connecting flight out of LA. They decided to fly standby and made it on another flight however, they couldn’t sit together. 1 seat was in first class and the other was in economy. Chris gave his wife the first-class seat. She sat next to a movie star whose name was Jack. Sometime into the flight the plane encountered a bizarre storm that ripped the back of the plane off. Some first-class passengers survived and were in a raft. Eventually the survivors found an island. The pilot died in the raft. A passenger who is a nurse was in the raft and cared for the survivors. They built a shelter on the island. The wife (sorry drawing a blank on her name) wanted to try and save her marriage with this trip, “felt” her husband was alive. While on the island about 3 months the survivors thought they saw a ship but couldn’t signal the ship. One survivor thought it looked like a pirate ship. They also commented that they could never see satellites circling at night. They decided to take shifts at the top of the island to signal ships.
This is where the book disappeared, I REALLY a want to find and finish this book.

364B: Big and Little Mother and Daughter Pair

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I am looking for a children’s picture book which I read in the mid 1980s (not sure if it was new at the time) at a public library in Columbus OH. The story has a mother and daughter that plays on the theme of big and little.
The title is something like ‘When you were little and I was big’ or ‘When I was big and you were little’ – I did find a book with a similar title, but it wasn’t the right one.

Some memorable lines include – ‘When you were little and I was big I gave you a bath in a teaspoon, and one piece of spaghetti was your whole dinner, and I carried you to school in my pocket’

364A: The bird who got a job

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I am looking for a children’s book about a bird/vulture/hornbill that is different than other birds and gets a job. Wears hat and briefcase in the book. I remember hornbill specifically but could be another type of bird. Pictures from the book are abstract kind of, moody/dark different from normal books. May be set in Africa? I think he’s also reading a book on another page.

363Z: Being creates world/people, comes to Earth to visit and forgets he created it all

363Y: Mystery about disappeared businessman found in a circus (Solved!)

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This is a mystery I read in the past several years, set in London, about a tall man who worked in the City, left for work, seen by a tradesman in the block by his house, never reached the end of the block. Years later, the ?main character, a younger man or maybe a detective, found him in a circus in Europe. The younger man may have been a relative. It turned out the tall man was very athletic and had bounded over a high brick wall around an estate in his block to live with a woman who collected snakes. They left for France and owned the circus, I think. I thought it might have been a Sayers or Allingham mystery, but the descriptions of each of their books doesn’t sound like it could have been.

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