Forgotten book title and authors

daisypond, if it’s not ‘The Guardians’, it could possibly be Futuretrack 5, by Robert Westall.

Oh I have one that I've been searching for for over a decade. Four teenage friends living in New York or Brooklyn in the late 80s. They're grafitti artists and decide to pull off a grand stunt by graffitiing a plane at JFK. They grafitti the word "peace" in 4 different languages. I remember the main character / narrator was a short boy and his friends were a Latina girl who he had a crush on, her boyfriend whose parents were artists and had a massive crazy warehouse apartment and one other kid, I think a boy? It's been driving me insane for years. Help!

Ah🤦‍♀️ I forgot to add that the name is “Family Secrets”. The Good Reads app shows 2698 other books with those words in the title.🤦‍♀️

I read a school a series of pony books - there come up quite often on mn but never the one I want and I can't find them.

Girl with a grey horse who lived with her dad in pair of cottages. Dad bought horse with redundancy money. There was along trek in one book - like andendurance overnight- and a musical ride. They slept at some ones house after getting lost and banged their heads on the pillow so they got up at a certain time

So I have one, but it’s a bit strange as I (think!) I know the name of the book, but as it is such a common name, I can’t find the one I’m thinking of. Perhaps someone can help with the author?

I read it in the early-mid 90s it was a paperback I picked up on holidays that my mother’s friend was reading, so possibly pushed around then. The story was about a girl being abducted, But that happened very quickly, and then (I think) most of the rest of the story was about her being raised elsewhere, then probably realising what happened and coming back to her family as a success story.

I never got to finish it - I had to give it back when I was only halfway though. I’ve been looking for 25 years!!

Any help would be gratefully received.

Mumpsimus I don't think it's likely to be the one because I don't remember a murder happening, but there's an Arthur C. Clarke short story, 'All the Time in the World' with a similar premise. It's in the 'Of Time and Stars' anthology.

This one isn’t a book but a longish short story within an anthology of - probably - spooky/ghost/horror type stories.

It might be called something like “A Year In A Day”.

Basically there’s a group of men playing poker or something and one is murdered right there at the table BUT nobody can work out how because (I think) it was all caught on videotape.

Turns out someone has developed a drug that temporarily alters your metabolism so that you begin to live life so rapidly that it feels as if everyone else has frozen; as if time stands still. To everyone else, you are moving so fast you’ve essentially become invisible.

It was a really good story and I’ve never been able to find it!

Massive kudos to anyone who can.... !

Does anyone remember a children's picture book about a mouse called Dudley who gets lost in the snow? I took it out of the school library so many times in about 1998 that my teacher said I couldn't have it again I would love to buy it now but google has failed me for years!

@ PorpentiaScamander was it Children of Winter by Berlie Doherty?www.goodreads.com/book/show/1579907.Children_of_Winter

Oh, it does mention lobotomies! That is it. Years I’ve been looking for it, years, I tell you! I’m going to see if I can find a copy.

I wonder if it’s The Guardians. Written 1970. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardians_(novel)

Plot seems vaguely right, but I don’t see any mention of lobotomies. For years I kept coming up with S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, but it is not that. But the similar title is making me think The Guardians could be it.

No, definitely not that. Older than that, but set in a world in the future.

That isn't The Demon Headmaster, is it? V popular in the 80s but maybe a bit younger than what you're describing.

I’ve one that has been bugging me for years. Read it at secondary school in early ‘80s, so must have been deemed worthy enough. Set in future, dystopian. Very large schools over 2,000 pupils. My school at the time wasn’t far off that and I remember the teacher having to explain that this was meant to be noteworthy. Teen boy discovers people are being lobotomised so they conform. I think his uncle was part of the big conspiracy. Maybe a bit like Stepford Wives but for YA.

Great thread, I haven't recognised anything so far but I will keep checking in!
I will post mine in case anyone recognises it from my vague recollections, this was a book I got out the library in the late 90s.
All I can remember is that it was set in the USA during the Prohibition era, maybe Boston or somewhere else on the east coast. It was a story about a family, the father was a businessman and there were two adult sisters. One was divorced with a young child, she had an affair and got pregnant and then had an abortion.
I don't remember anything else about the story but the affair/abortion plot has always stuck in my mind.

Never Mind. I’ll get my coat!

www.bookdepository.com/Man-Who-Turned-into-Himself-David-Ambrose/9780224035194

Super vague but I read something about 20 years ago called something like The Man who Turned Inside himself. It was sort of a sci-fi I think and had a silver cover.

There’s also a great Political thriller I read but all I can remember is the description of a house some people were secretly meeting at!! I’ll never find the book but I can picture that house clear as day.

Hard to tell from the synopsis. Maybe I'll just have to buy them all
Roses of Eyam came up as a suggested title... it's a play... maybe it was a play not a story

Thanks Elizabeth. I'll have a look at them. Eyam by David Paul (I think) sounds really similar to what I remember. But wasn't published until 2012 so it cant be that!

Porpentia - couple of options for that one: might be 'Year of Wonders' by Geraldine Brooks or 'A Parcel of Patterns' by Jill Paton Walsh. More likely JPW in the late 90s I think.

I read something at school (late 90s) probably in English (the subject, although also the language ). It was set in a village during the plague/black death. That's all I remember so not a lot to go on.

I have one.

Crime type books set in post war period, so 1940s and 50s maybe. There were quite a few. Seem to remember possibly some sort of spy theme but I might be wrong. It wasn’t a police book, more a private investigator. Grey book covers. The name Robert is ringing a belll but not sure if that was author or a character.

cake I think it was originally published 1988 so you may be looking at a second edition there. I hope it’s the one !

Oh hang on - it looks so similar but was published in 1995 it says, and I read it in the 80s. I am going to have to buy it and find out!

Polly! I think that is the one!! I have been looking for that for 20years and nobody has ever been able to find it, you are some kind of marvel!