Biblio File

Finding a Book When Yous've Forgotten Its Title

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

Library books lined up on a shelf Cheque out selected results from NYPL Title Quest 2019, held Baronial 2, 2019, as well equally Title Quest 2018.

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

Information technology can be tough to think the title and author of a book you read a long time ago—even if information technology was a book that was actually important to you. Fiction is cataloged by author and title, non by bailiwick or plot line, which makes identifying books by just their storyline difficult.

Readers ofttimes ask librarians for assist finding these kinds of books. And nosotros tin can't figure out the mystery every single time, simply we practice have a few tricks to aid notice the respond.

Get-go, pin down everything you tin remember nearly the book, plot, grapheme names, time period in which the book may have been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the volume.

Online resources can help with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all you take is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a skillful place to first; then, you can mail to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize information technology. Or, last only not to the lowest degree, leave a annotate on this post!

Before You Start

Try Google! Type in everything you tin can remember about the volume — as in, "picture volume rabbi animals communication yiddish" — and roll through the results. (That's a real-life case of a volume a patron was request for: It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach.)

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

Crowdsourcing

  • What'southward the Name of That Volume?
    A Goodreads group with searchable discussion posts and thousands of questions and answers.

  • Proper noun That Book
    A LibraryThing group of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-adjacent — who assistance solve book mysteries via threaded discussions.

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

  • Reddit's whatsthatbook thread
    A nigh endless thread of users trying to help other users think volume titles, including several frequently 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 assist. Lots of children's books here.

  • Big Book Search
    If y'all tin can only recollect what the cover looks like, try this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library bill of fare)

  • Books & Authors

  • Books in Print

  • The New York Times databases

  • NoveList and NoveList 1000-8 (in-library use only)

More Suggestions

  • If you can remember just ane word, apply the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to notice long lists of titles with a particular discussion.

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

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

How to Move On

Sometimes, information technology's simply not going to happen, and you lot tin can't find that elusive volume yous've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The world is full of smashing books! Hither are a few ways to find more than...

  • Check out recommendations from our volume experts here at NYPL. We offering suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more than.
  • If y'all'd similar a personalized recommendation, find us on Twitter or fill out our What Should I Read Next? email form.
  • Want a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel gratis to leave a comment and tell the states about a book you're trying to recall! Our library staff members will pop in and bank check it periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to brand guesses and suggestions.