Book-recommendation-filter: help me choose a book to get for my dad for Christmas. [more inside]
posted by synecdoche on Dec 20, 2009 - 28 answers

Oh, Inverted World! Where did your pages go (help me find them)? [more inside]
posted by le morte de bea arthur on Dec 9, 2009 - 6 answers

What sources exist for good cheap learning literature? I'm thinking of things like AMSOIL's oil case studies and the Chelsea Milling/Jiffy Mix recipe book. Preferably non-digital, and any language is okay. [more inside]
posted by jwells on Dec 3, 2009 - 1 answer

[Obscure book filter] Anyone remember a book about a grandfather hired to make a notebook to teach someone's daughter about the world, but he secretly makes two copies? [more inside]
posted by BusyBusyBusy on Nov 23, 2009 - 11 answers

Which books help me get into the psyche of war criminals, suicide bombers, etc? [more inside]
posted by hasna on Nov 3, 2009 - 21 answers

I need a book recommendation for my girlfriend; her favourite book is Yann Martel's "Life of Pi". Any ideas? [more inside]
posted by mizike on Oct 7, 2009 - 28 answers

Another forgotten book from childhood. Time travel/survival. Dinosaurs. And yes, it vibrates. Help? [more inside]
posted by rokusan on Aug 26, 2009 - 9 answers

Suggest absorbing fiction about mysterious England. [more inside]
posted by Doctor Suarez on Aug 2, 2009 - 54 answers

I crave a great novel that's as addictive as a popcorn movie. Please recommend me some literary page-turners. [more inside]
posted by Beardman on Jun 5, 2009 - 104 answers

Why is French language so mangled in David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest? [more inside]
posted by elgilito on Mar 7, 2009 - 16 answers

Looking for literary magazines that are well-known for their reviews of newly-published poetry, both chapbooks and full-length books. [more inside]
posted by exlotuseater on Jan 16, 2009 - 5 answers

San Francisco filter: Help me find a good book club for 20-30-somethings? [more inside]
posted by mingodingo on Jan 11, 2009 - 13 answers

The phenomenology / ontology of text: has anyone examined this issue directly in philosophical, literary and/or critical terms? [more inside]
posted by 0bvious on Sep 18, 2008 - 26 answers

What is the closet thing to MetaFilter, but about books and/or writing? [more inside]
posted by Darth Fedor on Aug 4, 2008 - 24 answers

Help me remember the title/plot of this (pre-?) teen fictional book. [more inside]
posted by itchie on May 10, 2008 - 3 answers

What book is this? I remember an intro that describes Paris, focuses on gold, and has some analogy about the city's inhabitants being like wheat or grain. [more inside]
posted by conch soup on May 9, 2008 - 4 answers

What one book will allow others to gain the truest insight into the soul of each city or region [more inside]
posted by reenum on May 6, 2008 - 16 answers

BookFilter: Help me remember this book about 3 children who go on an "incredible journey" of sorts after their parents fail to pick them up from the hotel's daycare. [more inside]
posted by acoutu on Apr 10, 2008 - 6 answers

I want to hear about "anti-cool". [more inside]
posted by twins named Lugubrious and Salubrious on Mar 11, 2008 - 50 answers

Looking for the name of a sci-fi book. Man is injected with a serum that causes him to shrink forever, eventually discovering there are universes smaller than atoms. [more inside]
posted by Gudlyf on Feb 7, 2008 - 9 answers

I'm trying to find the name of a book I read several years ago. The book told the life story of a young gay man who might have been British. Further, possibly only half-correct, details inside. [more inside]
posted by MadamM on Jan 10, 2008 - 6 answers

What is the 19th Century illness that disfigures Esther Summerson of Dicken's Bleak House? [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia on Jan 6, 2008 - 9 answers

Bookfilter: looking for a book I read as a kid involving a sick kid and sailing. The wrinkle? I read it in German, so I don't even know if this book exists in English. Obviously, there's [more inside]
posted by yggdrasil on Jan 4, 2008 - 1 answer

Help me find some good atheist reading materials for my birthday. [more inside]
posted by internet!Hannah on Nov 6, 2007 - 31 answers

Help me choose some books to nominate for book club. No, no, no, this one's a tad more complicated. :) [more inside]
posted by grrarrgh00 on Sep 17, 2007 - 3 answers

Give me the Cold War chills, please. I'm going on vacation soon and I would like to settle down on the beach with a really juicy espionage novel, preferably something about the Cold War, something suitably dense, complex, panoramic and violent. What should I read? [more inside]
posted by gentle on Aug 9, 2007 - 37 answers

What books are similar in attitude and environment to Bonjour Tristesse (Françoise Sagan)? [more inside]
posted by cowbellemoo on Jun 8, 2007 - 3 answers

Anybody know any good novels either about or a good chunk of which is set in the Caribbean? [more inside]
posted by Heminator on Mar 21, 2007 - 40 answers

Which book would you consider a "universal" book? [more inside]
posted by Jaybo on Mar 14, 2007 - 57 answers

I remember a friend of mine telling me about a short story/novel/novella about a baseball pitcher whose pitched balls disappeared after leaving his hand, only to reappear in a totally different place and kill someone. There's [more inside]
posted by reenum on Nov 22, 2006 - 9 answers

Has Finnegans Wake ever been translated? How?
posted by dead_ on Oct 20, 2006 - 36 answers

I want to read some good books about sports sociology. [more inside]
posted by huskerdont on Oct 4, 2006 - 12 answers

Please help me select a book as a present for my nephew. He's 19, and when I gave him a Chapters gift card for his high school graduation last spring, he used it to buy a complete set of Tom Clancy novels. Political espionage/intrigue/adventure has to be the genre I know the least about. If my nephew likes Tom Clancy's and Frederick Forsythe's works, what other books in the same genre would he enjoy?
posted by orange swan on Sep 17, 2006 - 25 answers

I'm hoping someone can help me remember the title of a book I read a long time ago. When I was in middle school, I picked up a fantasy book at the library that I absolutely loved. This many years later, I can't remember the title or author for the life of me. [more inside]
posted by jxpx777 on Jun 18, 2006 - 11 answers

I'm looking for literature analysis websites. Are there any suggestions for worthwhile sources? I've found a bunch of essay websites, but they seem conflicting or written by students. I'm looking for accurate information that will give me some new perspectives in a wide variety of literature. In time I would like to be able to teach more about hidden symbolism to other people including students. Right now I'm looking specifically for interpretations of Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" and George Orwell's "1984". Thanks in advance if anyone has any advice or tips.
posted by Knigel on May 29, 2006 - 12 answers

What is the title of a children's book about a large family of mice, all of whose names are derived from numbers? [more inside]
posted by msbrauer on May 9, 2006 - 5 answers

In the Kite Runner, the character Saurabh was named after the hero of an ancient Afghan (or Persian?) story mentioned a few times in the book. What was that story and can I buy an English translation? Or did the author just make that up?
posted by exhilaration on Feb 15, 2006 - 4 answers

In the book The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, is there a rose in the book? I think I might have missed that reference. What name and what rose is the title referring to?
posted by timyang on Jan 2, 2005 - 11 answers

ProposedAlabamaBookBanFilter -- As mentioned in the Blue, there is a piece of legislation proposed by Alabama State Representative, Gerald Allen, that seeks to ban "novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural" from publically-funded schools and libraries. If Mr. Allen's bill survives committee and passes, I cringe to consider just which literary classics would disappear from the shelves of Alabama libraries. Which, if any, of your favorites will become suddenly verboten?
posted by grabbingsand on Dec 2, 2004 - 34 answers

More FictionFilter: Nuclear warhead, meet Oz. Sound familiar? [more inside]
posted by melissa may on Nov 19, 2004 - 8 answers

I have a vague, sketchy recollection of a book series I used to read in 2nd and 3rd grade (20 years ago). It was about two young girls, friends, who solved mysteries together. They also had a dog that loved salami. I believe the were normal books, not comic books, but each book had cartoony pictures of "crime scenes" and such, with little arrows pointing out certain clues (kinda like Bernie Mac, except funny). Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?
posted by emptybowl on Jul 9, 2004 - 6 answers