Forgotten book title and authors

[RyanBergarasTeeth]

Starting a thread for Forgotten book titles feel free to add your own and see if anyone can find it. I will start. When i was at schook we had to read a book and all i remember from it was:
The main character is a boy with older parents who are a bit strange but he doesnt know why. He ends up going to an open day at camebridge uni with said weird parents. Something happens i think one of the professors recognises him which is weird as he has never been and he sees a photo of himself but doesnt know how as he was never there. Eventually he confronts his parents who tell him the truth. They had a son who was killed either sickness or an accident so after he died they had his dna cloned and out into an embryo so his mother gave birth to him the clone of the original son.

@AquaLibra not this one I suppose? Unfortunately I can’t find any details of the plot but it’s the right sort of period.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/40779597

@pollyhemlock thanks, it could feasibly be. Will keep an eye out for a cheap copy of it sometime and see if that’s it!

Trying to find the name of a series of books for a friend. Published before 1980 (maybe decades earlier).

Series was about a family who live in New England. Each book in the series focussed on a different family member (7-8 books in the series?). She remembers the family house had a virginia creeper, there might have been a character called Rupert and a man/boy with red hair. Books covers were a dusty pink colour.

Any ideas?

@VirginiaCreeperNovels Are they the series of stories about the Cares family by Elizabeth C Spykman ? Set in Massachusetts The first one is A Lemon and a Star. I think the brother is Hubert rather than Rupert..

@pollyhemlock - not them but does fit the description so v good attempt. Thank you!

@VirginiaCreeperNovels Ah that’s a pity . Felt quite confident as the older brother has red hair! Will have another think. There’s the Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright ( Four Storey Mistake etc) but they’re New York rather than New England.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit was the timeslip novel set in the UK or US? It sounds vaguely familiar. What about The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn? I might be completely wrong because it's set in Canada or the US but I remember an argument about when something was invented and wellies would fit that.

@JaninaDuszejko

Wow, that seems like a strong candidate though I could have sworn it was UK Victorian times

The Root Cellar is a great time slip story but I think it’s a one off and not a series .

Timeslip novels for children. I love timeslip kids books and this is a good list.

Thanks for that Janina

Could the New England series be the Austin family books by Madeleine L'Engle? Set in Connecticut and New York, published 1960s.

@TheBookShelf - messaged my friend. Thanks.

Four years after first posting this on this very thread, I'm giving it one last shot...

I always post this on these threads but to no avail.

It's a trashy teen novel which I would have read in the late 1970's or 1980's. I think the girl is called Julie. She buys really boring presents from catalogue companies. She's fancied by boy but she fancies an older lad called Steve. To impress him she goes to the chip shop and asks for fish in breadcrumbs instead of batter. She mistakenly sets fire to her kitchen.

Sounds riveting doesn't it? I have to find out what it's called though so I don't use up a death bed request.

Every search I do leads me back to one of your original posts @madamehooch I am quite invested now though. Will keep trawling!

Also @madamehooch have you tried posting here? https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/

@slightlyjaded - it's a very frustrating way to become a Mumsnet legend! 😆

Don't give up hope! I spent at least 20 years trying to find the name of a TV programme I watched in late 70s/early 80s. It was a single drama thing and really shocked me at the time (boyfriend in leather jacket turns up at house. Daughter not home. Mum has sex with him). I thought someone might be called Linda, but that was all I had. Found it in the end - I think it was a 'Play for Today' but now - about five years later - I've forgotten again and still haven't been able to watch it, so I've started looking again.

So it could be worse. You could be me.

@slightlyjaded - I believe that's called 'The Mother' and it looks like you can watch it on BBC iplayer!

Wow, you people are amazing! I hadn't noticed how old the thread was, but I shall ask anyway:-

Two YA sci-fi stories from, I think, the 1980s. I don't even know if they were any good but they've stuck in my mind ever since, so they've clearly got something.

First is definitely a novel. It concerns some boys and a science teacher, who's generally considered a bit weird because he won't have any technology in his house. The drama develops into a terrifying bid to take over the world by some sort of satanic bank whose head office reaches from the ground to the stratosphere and is full of fire. The world takeover's implemented by making everyone have a bar code stamped on the palm of their hand or forehead (yes, blatant religious overtones!) The professor's ability to interpret barcodes somehow enables the boys to infiltrate the devilish bank and save the world.

The second, I thought, was a chapter in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - but am pretty sure it isn't! There's a gas planet, populated by enormous, whale-like creatures that live for millennia and have growths on their backs which develop into full landscapes over time. Other creatures have evolved to live in these floating countries. The whales are constantly attacked by horrid birds that take bites out of them. When a whale loses a critical mass through bird bites, it sinks through the planet's atmosphere and all the creatures living on it die. There was a funny scene where two of the floating whales have sex.

Ringing bells for anyone?

No, it's older than that. It's fine - don't want to derail the thread, I'll find it again!

Remember a book about a girl who was on an adventure, sort of fantasy, piece of fabric which could be stretched and some kind of canal boat.

Starting to think it could be a William Morris

I didn't know he wrote novels! Thanks, you've given me a new rabbit hole to explore 😆 It wasn't this, was it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_of_the_Wondrous_Isles

That sounds very probable. I'm going to get a copy Thank you so much

I have found Morris quite difficult to read, I have the Well at the Worlds End and have struggled to finish it.

@Garlicbest the whale creatures sound a bit like the dirigible behemothaurs in Iain M Banks’ Culture series. They are vast whale like organisms that have whole ecosystems living on them. Can’t remember the birds though. I think they’re in Look to Windward.