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books from the 1980s that no-one else remembers!

343 replies

GoldenGreen · 21/12/2010 11:22

For some reason I have been compulsively trying to track down half-remembered books that I read as a young teenager - not sure why as they are not classics but I would really like to revisit them. I had hoped my younger sister might have picked them up but she never liked the same books as me.

Does this ring a bell with anyone:

Series with the children of detectives - I think a brother and a sister and an adopted sister (her parents were police officers who died - I think she was Irish, red haired and fiery - obviously) - they solved mysteries based around school. In one they caught a vandal because of the paricular way he wrote "H". In another there was a school trip to France with an old fashioned type of Polaroid camera - this was a key part of the plot but can't remember any more!

The other book that I remember reading obsessively was a teen romance one with a girl whose parents were repressed and abusive. She was not allowed any freedom at all but managed to meet a boy and sneak out. The thing I most remember is that she had no clothes apart from school uniform so she had to embroider flowers on her school shirt when she went out to meet him.

Anyone else got any vague memories of books they once loved and that no-one else ever remembers?

OP posts:
NoahAndTheWhale · 22/12/2010 07:43

If you go to the abe website there is a forum where people are amazing at working out which books you are talking about. I had a reply (correct!) about a book that had been bugging me for years within about 20 minutes.

I loved Anastasia Krupnik :)

madamehooch · 22/12/2010 07:35

OK I have one that's been bugging me for years. It's a young teen book about a boy who likes a girl called Julie. She however likes a more sophisticated man called Steve. She cooks him fish and chips and burns the chips so has to go in to the chip shop to buy them and asks for the fish to be cooked in breadcrumbs instead of batter so she can pass it off as homemade. She also orders lots of things off club books. Can't remember anything else I'm afraid. Please please please put me out of my misery .....

MoreCrackThanHarlem · 22/12/2010 00:38

Brandy the Anastasia books are by Lois Lowry.
I read a few of hers- Summer to Die, and one about a girl whose sister dies- may be the same book, actually.

AngryPixie · 22/12/2010 00:20

topsmart was it 'The Family at One End Street'?

I loved those books.

TheBrandyButterflyEffect · 22/12/2010 00:06

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FrustratedHippy · 22/12/2010 00:05

the trouble with donovan croft?

KerryMumblesBahHumBug · 22/12/2010 00:03

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KerryMumblesBahHumBug · 22/12/2010 00:01

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suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:55

Anyone remember The Borribles? It had baddies who were sort of evil Wombles in it.

I didn't realise it was a trilogy. Quite fancy reading the other two now.

whateverfloatsyourboat · 21/12/2010 23:53

Actually this was late seventies. Got it in the school book club when I was about 7, and loved it. Not sure anyone else has read it, but I just got shivers looking at the cover again after all this time!

mylor the most powerful horse in the world

suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:53

I remember taking Princess Daisy by Judith Kranz to a Guide camp when I was about 13 and we took turns reading out the dirty bits Grin

suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:51

Stranger with my Face really spooked me - the bit at the end where they'd burned her body because they thought she'd died and the heroine needed to be careful never to astral project (or whatever it was) again because her sister's spirit was out there waiting... [shudder]

Guacamohohohole · 21/12/2010 23:50

We went through a Jackie Collins phase in boarding school we were only about 13, gosh how inappropriate!

suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:49

Midnight Is a Place by Joan Aiken was one of my favourite books.

llareggub · 21/12/2010 23:49

My favourite Lois Duncan was Stranger with My Face, about twins who were separated at birth. One of them learned astral projection to find the other. V spooky.

SecretSquirrel193 · 21/12/2010 23:49

Hm I remembered the story slightly wrong www.goodreads.com/review/show/6921982

Balthasar · 21/12/2010 23:48

GoldenGreen I remember the detectives one - they wrote the H with a dot instead of a line across the middle? There was something in it about clowns that scared the crap out of me too. Off to search for it now!

Guacamohohohole · 21/12/2010 23:46

Z for Zachariah, well I never... That's just come flooding back.
I read a lot of Judy Blume pre teen although can't think of any titles except Are you there God, it's me Margaret.
As a teen I read a lot of Lois Duncan, my favourite was this one about a school where the kids were possessed by dead musicians, artists etc...

suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:46

Private Keep Out - Gwen Grant

suzikettles · 21/12/2010 23:45

boogeek - I was just about to say Private Keep Out as well!

My mum has kept all my old books and I read that one again recently. It's hillarious and quite moving as well.

mylifewithmangers · 21/12/2010 23:45

Teen fiction I loved but now sadly out of print (and stolen from every library I've ever visited):

'Easy Connections' and 'Easy Freedom' by Liz Berry

SecretSquirrel193 · 21/12/2010 23:42

Little Dark Thorn

Very sad book :( From memory girl's mum dies in childbirth, step mom hates her, she is left in charge of little sister who then drowns under her watch and she is sent away and no-one likes her

MoreCrackThanHarlem · 21/12/2010 23:37

I just had a look on Amazon- lots of copies of Ballet for Drina, I'm sure there were lots more though, named after countries iirc- Drina dances in Madeira, Drina Dances in New York etc

What was her Mum called? Elizabeth Ivory?
Loved them, anyway.
The books followed her into adulthood, I'm sure she married in the last one (Drina Ballerina?)

boogeek · 21/12/2010 23:36

Sorry, iPod troubles! Tried to say that I loved those books, I believe the first is still in print and Lucy Mangan mentions them from time to time :)

boogeek · 21/12/2010 23:35

Topsmart: private, keep out; sequel knock and wait. L

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