Another thing that bugs me about the slide of search engines is I still can't find info on the 2-3 books I've been searching for from my youth. I know they exist, but no keywords seem to work together meaningfully. My only touchstone would be my friend from grade school, but that time is long past. - ThreadSky

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social • 70 days ago

Another thing that bugs me about the slide of search engines is I still can't find info on the 2-3 books I've been searching for from my youth. I know they exist, but no keywords seem to work together meaningfully. My only touchstone would be my friend from grade school, but that time is long past.

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toomanyhobbies.bsky.social•70 days ago

My wife has had some success finding obscure childhood books on the r/whatsthatbook subreddit if you haven't tried it already

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social•70 days ago

All of these are good tips!

jrosehale.com•70 days ago

I set Ecosia as my default for about a week, and it was so soothing not to have a half-dozen sponsored ads in the results. But the results weren’t great. IMO, Google took the main two big downhill steps when they 1) stopped including cached results and 2) stopped allowing boolean limits.

jrosehale.com•70 days ago

Google generally sucks now because of that, the ads, and a seeming disappeared interest in fighting content spammers. So I’m not going back. But nobody is good.

jrosehale.com•70 days ago

Wanna drop your book clues here? Or have you tried Reddit? Not sure if r/books or r/tipofmytongue is better. Or maybe r/genx??

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social•70 days ago

I should try reddit. I tried a couple of bookfinder sites.
All of these would be published pre-90s probably pre-87
#1 - A kid who is into monster models, posters, and movies summons monsters into reality. I think he befriends the Frankenstein monster. There is a wisecracking blob.

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social•70 days ago

#2 A boy (and I think a girl) go to a hidden island, it might also just be invisible. There are talking animals on it (a hippo stands out) and they get there by a magical ship (could be cruise ship or cargo ship). They have to fight off an invasion, and it had illustrations like Quentin Blake

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social•70 days ago

I checked to see if I was combining the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sequel with the book for Bedknobs and Broomsticks and maybe Half Magic, but I don't think that is the case.

jrosehale.com•70 days ago

Here’s a good subreddit to try: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/s/7jsU7uPwzI

jrosehale.com•70 days ago

When were you reading them? And were they YA-type books or more elementary age?

tonysalvaggio.bsky.social•70 days ago

They were more grade school. Our school library was for k-12 though. I went back and tried to look a few years ago but they had 2 fires and a purge since I graduated :(

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