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March 29, 2024, 09:34:59 AM

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What was that book?

Started by jobotic, November 08, 2017, 09:34:17 PM

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jobotic

I've got lots of these. books I've read over the years but can't remember the titles or authors.

The first one - the story of a remote village in the Soviet Union, and the local official trying to deal with the demands of the villagers, broken machinery, new directives, bureaucracy and the NKVD. It's a comic novel written in the Soviet era.

Thanks.

jobotic



studpuppet

Thought it might be Ilf & Petrov, but neither The Twelve Chairs or The Little Golden Calf really matches what you're thinking of.

Twed

Two children's books, read between 1991-1994:

1) Aliens abduct a girl. They deep-clean her like she's never been cleaned before, remove a fatal disease, and then inform her that she's a specimen. They have to wipe out the human race because their brains are the biggest in the universe, and all the aliens are worried that they might learn how to use them and commit human-based evil around the universe. Aliens eventually take a big shine to the little girl and find some faith in the human race.

2) Girl can't swim, but wants to swim for a charity thing. Her friends help to teach her. One of her friends tried to draw swimming diagrams on his Logo-like computer program and they all laughed at them. Very British.

jobotic

Quote from: studpuppet on November 12, 2017, 10:51:20 PM
Thought it might be Ilf & Petrov, but neither The Twelve Chairs or The Little Golden Calf really matches what you're thinking of.

Thanks, but it wasn't those. They sound interesting though.

jenna appleseed

1) Library book my mum took out circa 89/90, that I read by mistake because it had soft toys on the cover (pos also a dolls house). Had a child character that had cut the hair/fur of their soft toys thinking it would grow back (remember thinking they were stupid). Remember it having an American sort of Dallas type feel.
Only other bit I really remember was the last bit I reached before my grandparents discovered I was reading unsuitable books & confiscated them. There was an baby that had just been abducted & blood on the walls, maybe also a knocked over cot. At the same time a character that had somehow moved in with this couple claiming to be an African Princess also disappeared, and the female character was thinking/panicking? that they must've been fake & they could've caught aids off sharing a toilet seat. (Think I already knew that was bollocks and thought that character also stupid).   Been searching for this for ages.

2) Christian book I ditched when I stopped being a Christian & was generally angry about the whole thing.
Teen / young adult issue book. Got it via church book stall pre-summer 1996 (pos 93/94), wasn't really old/mature enough for it.  Think it was really aimed at later teens who weren't already Christians.

Was sort of fiction mixed with non fiction, & had a multiple choice format - sort of but not like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, think all options eventually led you to the last page which had a 'This is what the main character decided, but what about you?' type message.

Main plot was that the main male character's aunt had died and he was starting to explore Christianity. Think she'd been religious and he couldn't accept that she'd just stopped existing. IIRC the fiction parts were told from the  main character's point of view, & had parts narrated via their thoughts.
Included a page whey they met up with their brother in a pub to talk things over, brother got/was already drunk and ended up slurring about Jesus being tied to/crucified on a tree.

One plot line had them talking to a vicar, pos not believing them and/or questioning how much the vicar believed in it themselves. It also had a non- fiction page acknowledging there were good things created without Religion 'like Rock Against Racism' + one about the exploitation of sex & violence etc. that wasn't linked to any of the other pages & started with a message pointing that out but you'd still found it anyway.

Don't think it ended with the main character actually choosing Christianity or Atheism at the end. 
 

Enid Coleslaw

Quote from: jobotic on November 08, 2017, 09:34:17 PM
I've got lots of these. books I've read over the years but can't remember the titles or authors.

The first one - the story of a remote village in the Soviet Union, and the local official trying to deal with the demands of the villagers, broken machinery, new directives, bureaucracy and the NKVD. It's a comic novel written in the Soviet era.

Thanks.

That sounds like it might be Jaroslav Hasek's Bugulma stories.

Solid Jim

Quote from: Twed on November 13, 2017, 04:15:47 PM
2) Girl can't swim, but wants to swim for a charity thing. Her friends help to teach her. One of her friends tried to draw swimming diagrams on his Logo-like computer program and they all laughed at them. Very British.

I've an idea this might be Swimathon by Gillian Cross.

nedthemumbler

A Supernatural YA type book before that was such a big genre.  An armoured train has to fight its way from A to B, under attack from all sorts of malevolent and magical entities.  Really enjoyed it in about 1999.

Not expecting any help with this btw

maett

A pulp sci-fi book of short stories. It was old when I found it in the early 90s. I only remember 2 stories.

1: Someone gets there revenge on a man by leaving him on an alien planet where giant wasp creatures lay their eggs inside living beings. The story is told from the point of view of the man with eggs in him

2: Future Earth where when humans reach sexual maturity they are fitted with a kind of sex nappy/pants. The thing is made of flesh and once placed around the genitals cannot be removed and was developed in order to alleviate sexual frustration in all it's appalling manifestations (rape, war etc)

newbridge

Quote from: jobotic on November 08, 2017, 09:34:17 PM
I've got lots of these. books I've read over the years but can't remember the titles or authors.

The first one - the story of a remote village in the Soviet Union, and the local official trying to deal with the demands of the villagers, broken machinery, new directives, bureaucracy and the NKVD. It's a comic novel written in the Soviet era.

Thanks.

I haven't read it, but I feel that I know the book you're referring and infuriatingly can't think of the author. If I'm remembering correctly, the author was a pre-Revolution supporter of the Bolsheviks who fought in the civil war, but quickly became disillusioned with the Soviet government and wrote the comic novel you're thinking of among others.

sweeper

Been trying to track down a traumatising book I read in school.

Fantasy/horror story - what I recall is children being abducted by very tall, thin, insect-like people with big eyes and hairy faces. They stuffed them in sacks and took them to the moon, or somewhere moon-like. The book had many pictures.

Mainly interested in checking that it actually exists, and is not just some dream I had as a kid.

Phil_A

One of those "Ghost stories from around the world" type of books, had full colour illustrations. There are two stories I remember, the first was about a boy being haunted by the horrific seaweed covered spectre of his drowned dad, via the medium of a tiny wooden sailor (this one really shat me up).

The other was about Death coming to take the life of the youngest child in a family, but the family are able to trick him with the use of a tape recorder because apparently Death is an idiot.