Books You Don’t Remember the Name or Author of - Because if I can’t remember the name, it’ll drive me crazy

[SteelPlatedHeart]

How about this situation... Figuring out the publisher that released a certain piece of media that relate to the books you used to read.

Let me present to you this rabbit-hole that I decided to go down to because apparently I hate myself. In 4th grade my teacher had a big bookshelf in her class and three of them specifically were books regarding the unknown and supernatural.
View attachment 1884414View attachment 1884416View attachment 1884417
These three books specifically are all hard-covered and had audio cassette tapes that came in a clear cover that went over the books themselves. The weird thing about the tapes themselves is that they only told like half of the book (like 4-5 chapters if I recall) while side B of the tape had the reader of the book countdown to 1... for reasons that honestly escape me. Regardless, it's the audio cassette tapes that were my real main focus for the search.

However, and here's the kicker, NOWHERE does it show these things having the audio tape linked with them. All the sites I checked on Google (goodreads, amazon, ebay, discoverbooks, etc...) ONLY show the books by themselves and don't even mention the cassette tapes in their description. At first I thought that "Random House Inc." were the ones that made the audio tape, since the background music they used in some parts were exactly the same ones that were used in the "1988 TMNT Adventures Heroes In A Halfshell" cassette tape that came with the comic book. But then I found this...
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ONE image... on FUCKING PINTREST of all sites. Linked to a DEAD ebay link. The text on the tape is illegible, and the logo on the top left is absolutely NOT Random House Inc. which looks like this
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So I'm completely convinced I've hit a dead-end at this point.

Try checking teacher supply websites. Audio cassettes like that were typically made with the books for classrooms to listen to.

 

[Cheerlead-in-Chief]

The author of "Vert"
There were two crime novels, one on the real life German cannibal killer that turned into a Vegan, all I know the author was an American female.
The other one on two French sisters/murderers that spent most of their lives in jail, and one tried to seduce the other in their shared jail cell.
And another book on Paganism for teenagers, published in the early 1990's.

All in like one Goodwill-turned-Christian-Ministry-Nonprofit and the other in a Salvation Army that's no longer there.

 

[NoReturn]

Ok I got some hard ones for you guys, I'm having trouble even googling them.

1. An American story where a squirrel is sent to the store to buy some "Sody Saly Radus" (I think it was baking soda) and gets chased up a tree by a bear.
2. A native Alaskan (maybe) story of someone with a withered leg who carves a wife for himself out of driftwood.

These two may have been in the same collection of stories.

This last one was a picture book with beautiful illustrations, but searching the Caldecott winners comes up short. The book was wider than it was tall, the cover was primarily red, and one of the stories was about the moon being in a boat and then falling into water.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Ok I got some hard ones for you guys, I'm having trouble even googling them.

1. An American story where a squirrel is sent to the store to buy some "Sody Saly Radus" (I think it was baking soda) and gets chased up a tree by a bear.

https://www.amazon.com/Grandfather-Tales-American-English-Folk/dp/0618346902

This the book?

EDIT: Here’s the base story. You may have to do some digging to find the specific retelling you’re thinking of.

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/08/sody-sallyratus.html

 

[NoReturn]

https://www.amazon.com/Grandfather-Tales-American-English-Folk/dp/0618346902

This the book?

EDIT: Here’s the base story. You may have to do some digging to find the specific retelling you’re thinking of.

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/08/sody-sallyratus.html

OK, that's definitely the story, and I think I found a post on reddit of someone looking for a cassette of the same story collection I originally heard it in: https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmyton...cassette_tape_1990s_super_creepy_stories_for/
I'm going to keep looking. This definitely gives me more to go on than I had.

Edit:

• It was in a story collection with "The Tounge-cut sparrow" and "Vasilisa the Beautiful"

 

[soft breathing]

So I'm completely convinced I've hit a dead-end at this point.

It seems like the publisher of the books is "Heinemann/Raintree" - they still have an active website. I'd probably try to email them and ask if they know anything at this point. They honestly probably won't, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

 

[Night Owl]

I had this book when I was a kid, but I can't find it. It was big and red, about the size of a small coffee table. There were dwarves or gnomes on the cover, riding some sort of flying machine. The book itself was about these dwarves/gnomes going on a journey in a airship and the only reason I remember that was because there was a full spread of the cutaway airship somewhere in the book and it detailed each compartment as to what it did to operate the ship. I think there was even a list of supplies they were going to take with them written right next to it. I don't remember much of the story apart from the fact they crash the airship at some point and have to build another. I think the second airship was the one on the cover.

I've had no luck googling it so far.

 

[Coffee Druid]

The author of "Vert"
There were two crime novels, one on the real life German cannibal killer that turned into a Vegan, all I know the author was an American female.
The other one on two French sisters/murderers that spent most of their lives in jail, and one tried to seduce the other in their shared jail cell.
And another book on Paganism for teenagers, published in the early 1990's.

All in like one Goodwill-turned-Christian-Ministry-Nonprofit and the other in a Salvation Army that's no longer there.

Could the last one be To Ride a Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf? She wrote a lot of other books on Wicca, though she seems to have written most of them in the late 90s, early 2000s. Or, maybe Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler? It was published in several editions from the late 70s to the mid 90s.

 

[Andy Bandy Man]

there is this one book, and I don't recall the name for, or the author, or what it was about

 

[Dysnomia]

No one is going to get this but it's worth a shot. It's a sci fi book that my uncle had. I guess it was the 89s-90s but I have no idea how old the book was. It's no longer on the shelf I checked years ago and I don't know where it went. I am pretty sure I never borrowed it or even read it. But I did like the cover when I was a kid.

Not sure if this was the front or back cover. But it had a silver android man. I think he had a smooth, almost featureless head. But he was kind of gracile and elegant. I guess if an android can be that way. And he had a woman with him. I think they were overlooking a desert landscape. It wasn't The Martian Chronicles because he was definitely an android and not an alien.

I thought it might be I, Robot. And it honestly could be. But the cover I looked up had a little girl. I am fairly certain it was a grown woman on the book that I saw as a child. But it may actually be Asimov. I just can't google-fu the correct cover or book.

 

[Cyclonus]

I got one that's so obscure that nobody will get it. I have vague memories of a book I read as a kid where the most deadly insult in some exotic culture is translated to English as "You son of a terrible Baker! I throw stones at your badly made bread!" or something along those lines. Everything else is a blur. I'm getting vague connections to sentient rabbits and a spaceship going down a tunnel but I might be mixing it up with something else.

 

[Cheerlead-in-Chief]

Could the last one be To Ride a Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf? She wrote a lot of other books on Wicca, though she seems to have written most of them in the late 90s, early 2000s. Or, maybe Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler? It was published in several editions from the late 70s to the mid 90s.

Maybe drawing down the moon
The cover had teenagers in 1990's clothing walking down the sidewalf, front views

 

[Spit bucket]

A series of books that revolved two kids going in a treehouse and going back in time or to another world. I remember reading a lot of them in 2nd grade.

 

[Vecr]

A series of books that revolved two kids going in a treehouse and going back in time or to another world. I remember reading a lot of them in 2nd grade.

Magic Tree House, that's pretty easy.

 

[The Empirical Bogey]

No one is going to get this but it's worth a shot. It's a sci fi book that my uncle had. I guess it was the 89s-90s but I have no idea how old the book was. It's no longer on the shelf I checked years ago and I don't know where it went. I am pretty sure I never borrowed it or even read it. But I did like the cover when I was a kid.

Not sure if this was the front or back cover. But it had a silver android man. I think he had a smooth, almost featureless head. But he was kind of gracile and elegant. I guess if an android can be that way. And he had a woman with him. I think they were overlooking a desert landscape. It wasn't The Martian Chronicles because he was definitely an android and not an alien.

I thought it might be I, Robot. And it honestly could be. But the cover I looked up had a little girl. I am fairly certain it was a grown woman on the book that I saw as a child. But it may actually be Asimov. I just can't google-fu the correct cover or book.

Do you remember anything about the content? I know a bit about Asimov's work and might be able to tell if it was by him or not.

 

[Lame Entropy]

It was a post-apocalypse story. I think the society was religious and as part of their dogma they killed (banished?) anybody born with any sort of mutation. I think there were radiated waste dumps.

 

[REMEMBERMKULTRA]

It was a post-apocalypse story. I think the society was religious and as part of their dogma they killed (banished?) anybody born with any sort of mutation. I think there were radiated waste dumps.

Perhaps you are thinking of A Canticle for Leibowitz?

 

[Lame Entropy]

Perhaps you are thinking of A Canticle for Leibowitz?

No that's not it but it sounds really interesting so I'll give it a read.

 

[REMEMBERMKULTRA]

No that's not it but it sounds really interesting so I'll give it a read.

If you haven't read Book of the New Sun definitely read that too. It's similar to Canticle and great.

 

[Koby_Fish]

I had a children's book once as a kid probably from the 1980s or the early 1990s about a group of stuffed toys who come to life at night and make their way into a nearby playground at night or something like that.

Does anyone know the name?

I dunno if this would be it, probably not, but I know the Raggedy Ann books were like that, with the dolls going all Toy Story and going outside at night and such.