Has Anyone tried to find a novel when you've forgotten the title?

[Rainbunny]

I've recently been a bit of a nostalgic mood about some really good novels I read when I was a child, of course so many years later I've usually forgotten the title. Would I be unreasonable to start a thread where people try to find a book by describing the story?

Here's mine: It was a book about a spoilt teenage girl who was pretty and popular and the story starts on her birthday (I think). Somehow she ends up going back in time to undo some mean things that she did when she was younger. In the end she becomes a nicer person (the point of the story I suppose). Sorry, it's a bit vague and foggy in my memory now so I may have bits wrong. I would have read this at any time between 1984-1990 most likely.

I hope this rings a bell with someone who has a better memory than me! What are your forgotten book titles?

www.bookfinder.com/?mode=advanced&first_ed=&signed=&currency=GBP. You can search for a book by keyword using this link. Not sure if that'll be helpful. Good luck.

I remembered something someone said in the novel and googled it - it came up with a site discussing the book. I had racked my brains off and on for years and was surprised it was so easy.

Could it be Changing Times by Tim Kennemore?

• The heroine is called Victoria and goes back in time by means of a clock she chooses as a gift from her uncle's antique shop. Her father is obsessed with bridge - if those details ring any bells with you.

Sounds like Hangin’ Out With Cici By Francine Pascal

Sorry to hijack OP but I read a book when I was younger and don't know what it is called and would like to read it again:

It's about a young black girl who volunteers at a care home and she reads books to an old blind lady. The blind lady kept making racist and disparaging remarks about black people and near the end she reached down to touch the girl and feels her hair and realised she is black. I think that's where the story ended and the girl didn't go back. Does anybody know this book??

Wall of words, Tim Kennemore
www.amazon.co.uk/Changing-Times-Magnet-book-Kennemore/dp/0416547206/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=tim+kennemore&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1516054463&sr=8-5

Valentia beat me to it! I didn't mean wall of words but changing times is the one on my link.

Yours sounds good mission - hope someone comes up with it.

It's not Wall of Words, though that's another great TK book! If it's Tim Kennemore, it's Changing Times.

I remembered the rough outline of the book and asked the Book Club on here and someone actually knew tge book I meant

Sounds like this book to me www.fantasticfiction.com/k/tim-kennemore/changing-times.htm. It was a book that stayed with me so I can describe bits of plot if you need.

x-post with you wanna, sorry.

I don't recognise mission's book but it sounds good.

Ah, someone typed faster!

Thank you Mumsnetters! I do believe it is "cHanging Times."! I've been googling for ages with no luck. Yay! I'd love to hear other people's book descriptions for titles they can't remember :)

Ooh, here's one. A young English girl, about six years old, growing up in India; her father is kind but her mother is very dismissive and uninterested. The family live in military housing, I think it is set in the 1950s/60s? Everyone tells her how important it is to tell the truth. One day she witnesses a local military officer having sex with one of the English wives (although she doesn't understand that it's sex, she just says he was "kind of squashing" the woman). She is accused of lying even though she was telling the truth.

Cabbages - this rings a faint bell with me, but I can't remember very much - if it's the one I'm thinking of it might have been by Rumer Godden.

I’ve got one. Read in late 80’s, early 90’s. Likely a older children’s/young adult.

Boy runs away when he thinks his gran dies as doesn’t want to go in care. Hides out (vague now). There is another boy in it whose dad owns a fish and chip shop but the boy is never allowed them. Think he must bring left overs to hidden boy. At the end hidden boy gets found and learns his gran is fine but in hospital.

I've been trying to remember a children's book from the 80s/90s but my memories of it are so vague.

[I think] it's about a small group of children who go into this house at night. One of them gets injured or poisoned. The others have to venture into this kingdom behind the house to find the cure which is moon berries or something similar.

Tried googling it every so often to no avail.

Mission - I remember that, I thought it was a short story though. The ending was the old lady had bought a present to say sorry (I think) but then she died and wasn’t able to give it.

That’s particularly stuck in my mind as our teacher gave us the job of rewriting the ending. Everyone wrote that the old lady lived, gave the present and happy ever after, but I didn’t want to give racism a happy ending and my old lady stayed racist. My teacher thought that’s what I’d do in real life and she was deeply unimpressed. I guess they thought we were incapable of imagining fiction.

The Bookfinder link above is for finding physical copies of books, I think. Not identifying specific titles.

This place is very good at identifying books:

forums.abebooks.co.uk/discussions/AbeBookscouk_BookSleuth/abesleuthuk?

Been trying to find a book we read in English class around 1986 age 14. I have googled on & off for years ! It's a post nuclear attack & the teenage girl & a man she finds are the only people left. Loved that book but can only remember vague details.

failing z for zachiara? My first outing into dystopia fiction!

I have one. It's not a book I particularly want to read again, but for some reason it really annoys me that I can't remember the title! I borrowed it from the library about 12 years ago.

It's about a woman who works in a library - she may have had a mild learning disability - who ends up in a relationship with an abusive man. I remember a passage where she describes losing her virginity to a man at a bus stop who uses a chocolate bar wrapper as a condom. The whole book was narrated in rather a matter-of-fact manner. The copy I read had a fifties-style illustration of a woman and had a subtitle that was something like "good news for modern women!" The title may have been the name of the main character - possibly beginning with M?

ChasedByBees Thank you!! I am one step closer. I admit I don't remember the present part but did remember it wasn't a long story. Just glad that someone else remembers if. I have tried googling for years but unable to find a thing How unprofessional of your teacher, btw.

I remember a teacher refusing to mark my piece of creative writing as it was "too imaginative". I later had it published, English teachers are a strange bunch. Few would fall under professional!