Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Novel

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person.

reenum — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:41:37 -0800

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person. I loved Hunting Eichmann and would like to read more books about a person or a group of people banding together to find a long lost person.

I'd prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction will work too.

Thanks!

How did you get to know the characters in your novel?

2oh1 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:40:20 -0800

How did you get to know the characters in your novel? I tried writing a novel but crashed and burned around chapter three. I realize that is common to the point of being cliche. The main problem was that I have (what I think is) a great story, but I don't know my characters very well. In fact, at one point, I asked myself if I cared about these people, and the answer was "no." I didn't care about them because I didn't know them well enough to really care about them.

How did you get to know the characters in your novel? Do you care about them? How much did you know about your characters when you started plotting your novel? What tips and tricks for character development have you learned along the way?

The perfect novel?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:28:34 -0800

Help me find that perfect novel for a Christmas present. Sorry to post this anonymously, but someone close to the recipient is one my contacts!

Now, I spent a good part of yesterday perusing book stores, eventually walking away empty handed.

The person receiving this book is a mid-fifties male who is an avid reader of good popular fiction. E.g. really likes Frank McCourt; really dislikes Dan Brown.

I considered Netherland by O'Neill but decided against it because I haven't read it and thought it might be too political. (Is it?) So if you need a gage to go by then it'd be McCourt.

The suggestion needn't be a heavy story, for well-written, humorous, insightful prose works just as well. What I want is a story that will stick with this person for time to come.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Christ, what an otaku!

DarkForest — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:12:11 -0800

Mefites have read everything, right? Has anyone here read the light novel sequel to the manga Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (Yokohama Shopping Log)? It's mentioned on the YKK Wikipedia page. If you have, could you tell me what happens in it, and if it is illustrated? Spoilers, hopefully, within. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

A novel based on Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō called Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō Novel: Seeing, Walking, Being Glad (小説ヨコハマ買い出し紀行―見て、歩き、よろこぶ者?), written by Akira Katsuki (香月照葉, Katsuki Akira?) and illustrated by Hitoshi Ashinano, was published by Kodansha on 23 October 2008 (ISBN 978-4-06-373326-6).[43] Set long after the conclusion of the manga series, it tells the story of a boy robot named Omega and his search for the legendary Cafe Alpha.

Can you fill in the details for me? I'd like to know how the story continues. I doubt there'll ever be a translation to English. I may want to buy the Japanese version, if it's well illustrated. Thanks!

How to find a novel whose subject was invisibility?

indigo4963 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:58:29 -0800

I can't remember the name of a novel I read around 1999 -- I believe it was a "new release" around that time. I get that date because I also read "A Conspiracy of Tall Men" around that time. The scraps I remember from the book were finding a book or a secret society about invisibility. Invisib* might have been in the title. I think there was a father figure -- maybe the actual father or a professor to a young man in search of invisibility.

Please recommend books similar to Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball

reenum — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:44:05 -0800

I love Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball". What should I read next? I'm in the middle of Simmons NBA opus, and it fascinates as to how he's able to pack in so much info, yet have the book remain accessible. I especially love how he makes fun of and injects humor into the various characters and events in the NBA's history.

Are there other books that are basically all encompassing, sprawling accounts of a particular entity, field, event, etc., yet remain fun to read?

I know some folks might suggest Mary Roach, but I just couldn't get into her stuff.

I prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction would work too.

Thanks!

What novels feature the written works of their own characters?

Sticherbeast — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:09:10 -0800

What novels worth reading exist in which writers appear as characters and we actually get to read their writings within the novel itself? Bonus points if, say, a character writes short stories, and then we see a full short story by that character. I'm also curious as to whether a script by a character has appeared within a novel about that character.

I'm not interested in novels where a character orally recounts a story and we read about that.

Please suggest books, movies or shows like Bel Canto

reenum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:44:26 -0800

I loved the plot of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Any recommendations for similar books, shows, or movies? I loved how Patchett's book showed hostages and hostage takers forming a sort of community within their besieged compound.

I also remember an essay with a similar theme by P.J. O'Rourke. It involved him being stuck in a hotel with a bunch of foreign correspondents during a bombing and talked about how they coped.

Any suggestions?

Name This Russian Novel

thegreatfleecircus — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:44:35 -0800

Trying to remember the title of a tragicomic Russian novel I had just begun reading 5 years ago, before it somehow disappeared. From what I remember, the main character was an older woman who refused to adapt to the post-communist societal changes in Russia. It followed her story as she faced the changing landscape, and persecution in the face of her commitment to the old ideals.

Perhaps a chair coated with glue?

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:09:03 -0800

With NaNoWriMo looming ever nearer, I would like to hear your best tips, tricks, habits, and techniques for staying chained to the keyboard. Realizing that the point is to get 50,000 words written, I've jettisoned all illusions of producing quality, publishable prose. My only goal is to finish without having to copypaste "All work and no play makes BOP a dull boy" five thousand times. I have a (rather vague) outline, I have some preliminary character sketches, and I have every expectation that the first ten thousand words will flow fairly quickly. But. I suck at follow-through. I have the attention span of the common housefly. So, writers: how do I stick with it, fight through discouragment and ennui, and produce 50,000 reasonably coherent words?

Note: I'm not looking for tips like "prepare moar" or "work your plan". I'm looking for how to stay motivated when the fun stuff stops and the hard work begins.

What's the book?

mippy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:16:36 -0800

I saw a graphic novel in a store today - the sequel to an earlier work, about a female high school student's adolescence, and written by a woman. Any ideas on what it could have been? The book had been published recently. The artwork had a red-haired girl in a hoody on the front, and the back cover referred to the heroine getting into drugs and (possibly) dropping out of high school. Oh, and it was American/Canadian, not Japanese. Because I'm an idiot, I didn't write down what it was, and I didn't have the £9 necessary to take it home from the second-hand bookstore.

What well-known novels lack any character description aside from names?

odinsdream — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:05:32 -0800

What well-known novels lack any character descriptions aside from names?

"...and for the rest of our lives!" Who said it?

lilbizou — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:38:47 -0800

What is this quotation from? "...and tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives?" I think the beginning is something like "what are we going to do tonight..." and it might be from a young adult type novel. The person is carrying on a normal conversation and suddenly gets panicky/existential.

Name that book: super powers from imagining you're sucking on a funny shape?

vytae — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:57:29 -0800

Is this a real book? All I remember is that 1 or more characters could activate some kind of special powers or transformational abilities by imagining the shape of a particular object in their mouth. I vaguely remember a story from my youth in which the character(s) could trigger something special by very explicitly imagining how a particular shape would feel in the mouth. My memory is that they would try to vividly conjure the feeling of holding a diamond-shaped, dice-like object in the mouth. If they did it right, they would temporarily have some magical power, or they would change into another form, or something. I've also got this phrase "form the sembler" attached to this particular memory, but I have no idea whether it's really related. I think the characters had to use these powers to fight against something sinister.

I think I would have read this between the ages of 10 and 15, so early 1990s, but I was reading a mixture of youth and grown-up fiction at that point.

Does this sound at all familiar? Google is giving me nothing, probably because I can't think of a concise way to describe imagining the shape of an object in the mouth.

Help me gain the wit that Iain M. Banks thinks I should have.

Nufkin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:42:13 -0800

In Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks there is a part where one of the Estodiens say to Quilan, 'I hope you have the wit to realise you past two little tests there, Major, not one'. It appears that I do not have the wit. Possible spoilers inside. This comes after Quilan's training when he first meets the second Estodien. One of their helpers circles around behind him and instead of him taking the hand offered in front of him. He spins and crouches down in his 'defense position'.

One test he passed was to know that he was about to be attacked; but what was the other? Was it as simple as him spotting someone who was out of place and a potential threat? But doesn't that just link into the 'first' test?

Query email format?

bobbyno — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:55:48 -0800

Should I maintain double spacing in an agent query email? Submission guidelines ask for the first 5 pages of my manuscript. How faithful should I be to the actual document? Hey there all, I just wanted to get some backup on this. I am sending a query to an agent and his submission guidelines ask for the first five pages, pasted into the body of the email.

If I was sending a copy of the manuscript in Word format, it would be double spaced. Should I send the 5 pages in the email in this format? It would be nice to get a little more content in there by single spacing it in the email, but I don't want to annoy him.

So, should I a) double space it and send the first 5 actual pages; b) single space the same content as a); or c) send 5 single spaced pages?

I kind of think the answer involves sending the content of 5 double spaced pages, I just wanted to see if anyone had any on the ground experience with this.

Thank you very much!!

Help me find this novel?

malusmoriendumest — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:48:36 -0800

Help me identify this novel of which the details have been lost? Read a novel when I was much, much younger that I'm trying to find again. The (admittedly sketchy) details that I can summon are these:

- Novel may be entitled by a double-figure number, like '53, in burning letters on the cover I remember.

- Involves (presumably future) plague involving blood.

- Protagonist is male, has wife and (unborn?) child who are both killed at some point.

Realise this is fairly unlikely to yield results but hope springs eternal.

I'm going underground...

ghost dance beat — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:48:20 -0800

It's time for another round of 'name that childhood story'! Please help me identify a novel about a society that (literally) lived underground... From what I remember, it was a sort of futuristic/sci-fi story. Humans lived underground and believed that they couldn't go up above the earth's surface or something terrible would happen. Eventually, one boy decided to go and gathered a group that was willing to leave with him. They were warned that they couldn't return once they left, but they still went. It may have ended with them standing in a field? I've been wondering what this book was for years, so I hope this rings a bell for someone!

Should you name Dickensian creeps after people you know?

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:34:39 -0800

Someone I know named a loathsome character in his novel after me. Is this sort of not cool? I have a very rare last name. There are only about ten of us left in the world. Eleven if you count the person I just discovered: a fictional character.

By a coincidence, I heard an NPR interview the other day in which an author said people hate it when they show up in other people's novels as minor characters. It violates our sense of being the main actor in life.

To me the problem was more that the dude named after me is explicitly described as a mentally ill, vindictive creep. I wanted to laugh and enjoy my cameo. But to be honest it felt like a dis, though I question whether it should annoy me.

Anyway, it made me wonder: Is there a point at which it's rude to name a character with no redeeming good qualities after people you know?

What happened to the H.M.S. Terror, a la Dan Simmons? Please?

taz — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:16:10 -0800

Please help me understand aspects of the ending of the novel "The Terror" by Dan Simmons! Super spoiler-icious details inside (definitely don't read unless you've read the book, or are sure you never want to)... It's driving me crazy! Who sailed the Terror 200 miles south of it's original ice-locked position near the Erebus? Who was the rat-toothed corpse in Crozier's bunk?

Am I wrong in understanding that the top-deck hatches had been nailed shut from the outside? And this would indicate that the (apparently) single remaining seaman aboard had been locked inside either for the protection of others, or for his own protection?

Failing the possibility that the mystery corpse was one of a party of rescuers (and I reject this theory because the ships were never found in real life), logic dictates that he would have had to be one of the three - Reuben Male, Robert Sinclair, and Samuel Honey - who set out cross country to return to the Terror. Simmons is specific that the corpse in the bunk is about the height of Crozier, but elsewhere, Reuben Male (the more significant character of the trio) is described as shorter than Crozier, and there is almost no mention or development in the novel at all regarding Robert Sinclair or Samuel Honey (who is not Honey, the carpenter, but a blacksmith with the same last name who is basically never mentioned except for being included in that group that chose to try to return to the Terror).

However, one detail seems to suggest that it wasn't one of those three: the corpse is swathed in heavy clothes and blankets, which puzzles Crozier, since if the three had managed to make their way back to the Terror, it would have still been summer. (I mention this because it's specifically pointed out in the narrative. In fact, since this discovery happens 2+ years later, they could have returned, sailed the ship out during summer, and then this individual could have died at a later time.) Earlier, much was made of checking every nook and cranny of the ship before abandoning it, which seems to have been explicated especially to put aside any notion that whoever the corpse was (and whoever sailed the ship and nailed the hatches shut) weren't sailors who had surreptitiously stayed aboard. The constant head-counting by Crozier also indicates that nobody is unaccounted for after the crew leaves the ship.

Simmons is also quite specific that the Terror was anchored in a place that didn't make any sense; instead of harboring in the shelter of the various nearby inlets, it is anchored in open water (later, ice), leaving it exposed to the terrible storms. Was this, again, an effort to isolate the one left on board? Or was it just an indication of extreme incompetence? (Wouldn't pretty much any sailor know to seek some kind of safe harbor?)

And wtf, the rat teeth?

It also makes me crazy that Simmons writes this:

How Terror could have ended up here, almost two hundred miles south of where she had been frozen fast near Erebus for almost three years, was beyond Crozier’s powers of speculation.

He would not have to speculate much longer.

eh? Why not? He doesn't seem to have reached any conclusion (or none that were shared with us poor readers) about this after inspecting the ship.

It just doesn't make sense to me that Simmons would have put all these extremely specific details/clues - not to mention the relocation of the Terror at all - just to leave it all as a hanging mystery. Why? Why? What am I missing?

Help me identify where this scene is from! Novel, most likely.

NikitaNikita — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:53:45 -0800

ID-the-scene-source: Someone watches a neighboring woman through a window as the neighbor carefully prepares for her lover to come visit. The lover comes in, gets it done with, leaves, and she cries. Please help me remember where I saw/read this, AskMeFi! Fairly sure it's a scene from a novel:

The narrator (a young boy, possibly) watches a neighboring woman from a window. The woman prepares carefully for her lover to come visit. She lights candles, gets dressed up, puts on makeup, etc. He comes in, has sex with her quickly (narrator describes him as being sweaty, oaf-ish, not good enough for her), then leaves, and she sits and cries, sobbing into her hands while seated on the sofa. Narrator describes this scene/the affair happening more than once, I think.

All Comics Big And Small And Dangly.

The Whelk — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:40:55 -0800

Where The New Comics At?: In addition to my many other hats I may be getting a job reviewing new erotica/sexuality/explicit etc comics in the future. I'd get my pick of any comic/graphic novel to review as long as it includes some element or discussion of sex or sexuality or whatever. The problem is that I have no idea what the new releases are and I can't seem to find a centralized list of upcoming titles with enough description. Where should I be looking for new and upcoming titles from big and small publishers, ideally with some description so I can tell what the hell it is?

Parallel Novels

marsha56 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:10:54 -0800

What's your favorite parallel novel and why?

Need to find book sales stats

arniec — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:04:11 -0800

How can I find sales stats and chart statistics for books released over the past 30 years? I am working on a research project regarding Star Wars novels. I know that many tout "New York Times Bestseller" on the covers; I am interested in finding out which ones were indeed NYTimes Bestsellers, when, for how long, etc.

Is there any way to look up bestseller status by book, rather than just looking at every Times Bestseller list from 1977 to now?

(Bonus points if there's any way to find out how many copies of the books sold, or a breakdown to hardcover and paperback release).

PS: I realize that often there are services that require a fee for such information. I'm willing to pay perhaps 3 figures for this information if I MUST but any association over $1,000 is outside of feasibility for me.

PPS: Yes, I've contacted the publishers. They don't have this information in a ready-to-share format.

Suspicious foreigners

thesailor — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:07:15 -0800

Imagine you are a suspicious foreigner in another country... ...and everyday you are blatantly followed by undercover police. Eventually this starts to get to you and you begin playing mind games with them. E.g. you walk into a bar, the undercover officer follows you in, you deliberately delay your order and wait until the officer has placed his. Just when the officer gets given his beer you walk out again, thus forcing the officer to give up his beer.

I'm trying to think of some other examples of mind games. This is for a book. Thanks in advance!