Category Archives: Unsolved

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.

376S: Pilot hidden in attic

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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.

376P: Potion makes you beautiful outside, ugly inside

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I would like to find a children’s picture book checked out from library in the early 90’s (most likely published then but possibly in 80’s), about a woman who was ugly/plain and wanted to be beautiful so the prince would marry her.  A little old man with a raisin looking face peddled her a potion but told her only to take it sparingly and it would make her pretty.  She did and then got vain and took it all, and became beautiful but ugly on the inside.  She was mean to the raisin face man and I think he turned out to be the prince under a curse and she didn’t end up with him after all.   Was a colorful picture book. 
Not the book titled Sleeping Ugly.  

376O: The Friendly Wolf (Short Story)

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The children’s short story The Dissatisfied Little Lamb by Catherine Jones, perhaps under her maiden name Catherine Hallman, published in a magazine sometime between 1940-80, about a lamb who leaves the farm to go exploring and finds a dog or wolf who is actually friendly and brings him home and he then protects the flock from a predatory wolf or other animal. Probably a magazine published in Georgia or SC.

376M: New Girl Teen Love Triangle

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The book revolved around three high school kids in a small town, two boys and a girl. I think the girl had recently moved to town, possibly from down south somewhere, and had befriended the two boys. One of the boys I remember being more awkward and emotional than the other. They have a spot in the woods that they meet up. Both boys fall for the girl, and eventually the girl falls for the not-awkward boy. Awkward boy catches other boy and girl either dancing or kissing in the school gym, and reacts badly. Girl goes to the special spot in the woods and finds that awkward-boy has hung himself. Possibly an 80’s Avon Camelot book.

376L: Spooky 90s picture book w/ Ichabod Crane vibes

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My younger brother and I used to regularly borrow this spooky picture book in early-mid 90s (could also be from the 80s). I remember rich illustrations and a main character with an Ichabod Crane nervousness about him. Can’t remember any of the plot except that at the climax of the book he is in a dark church and he believes there are ghosts all around. My brother’s memory is that the main character was an organist/pianist and that another character dresses up as a ghost and chases him off. I don’t *think* this is a version of Sleepy Hollow. But given how vague my memory is, anything is possible. Even if it is, I would love to figure out which version it is specifically. My brother and I have been trying to figure this out for years.

376K: Teens with Powers

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If I had to classify it, Young Adult fiction would be the genre, but it may just be broader fiction with a mostly teenage main cast.
I don’t remember much about the main character but he has some sort of power that I believe awakens, and he ends up on the run. He eventually comes across a mysterious girl and her relative (grandfather, I think) who rescues him and comes along with him. This girl seems to be able to see the future, and knows about him and that they will eventually be married.  I also believe that she can talk to animals, though this may not be the case. Her grandfather has trained her to fight and specifically talks about fortifying the house they were staying at with steel embedded in the door, before the government( or some evil corporation potentially) comes to get them.
I believe neat the end they find yet another youth who has powers, and end up infiltrating some sort of cult compound.
I’m pretty sure that it’s a relatively recent book, maybe 5 years old at most, because the sequel hadn’t been released yet, or it may have been a one off, I’m not sure.