Obviously, the more specific you get, the fewer results you'll have to comb through. You can also try the Google Books Advanced Search if you're not having any luck with the regular.

Why not go to Amazon, the original online bookstore? The advanced search asks for things like title, author, and publisher, but you can also search using keywords, age range, publication date, and subject.

Take my full featured video course on how to select the best keywords and categories for your book. If you're not familiar, BookBub is a great search engine for books. If you're a writer, it's also a powerful book marketing platform to help you reach potential readers. From nonfiction to historical fiction and everything in between, they are in the business of books.

You can refine your search using category tags, which you can pull from your book summary or vague description. Read my BookBub review here! Search through the largest online library in the world by visiting the Library of Congress Website and using the Advanced Search feature.

But specifically, the group, What's the Name of That Book? is dedicated to helping people find book titles based on things like the book's plot, narrative type, genre, or synopsis. You'll need to have a GoodReads account to post in the group, if you don't already it's free.

Sometimes what stays with us the longest is the feel of a book. This is why WhichBook is a great search site, as it lets you browse books by mood and emotion. You can also search by character and plot as well. There's a subreddit for everything.

So you may not be surprised to learn there's one dedicated to helping readers remember book titles called Tip of My Tongue.

Post what you can remember about the book, even if it's a vague description, and wait to see if anyone recognizes it. Reddit and Quora are similar in that you can post a question about a book and get answers from book lovers.

Include genre, a book description if you can , and anything else you can remember. Chances are someone will know the novel you're talking about.

If you have no luck with the websites above, you can turn to social media. Since your friends likely have similar tastes, you may be able to find the book's title simply by posting on Facebook or Twitter about it.

Use hashtags to help people locate your post. A good one is findthisbook. Or you can find social media groups of readers and ask them.

Facebook is a great place to find a book club or ten that can help you find the novel title you're looking for.

The group Help Name That Book has at the time of this writing over 20, members. There are nearly 20, publishers and authors under the umbrella of Google Books and most titles give you a handful of pages to check out before you decide to buy the book or save it for a better one.

Not all books will give you a preview, but the ones that do are worth a turn of the page. The other great name when it comes to books and sundry other items. Amazon has turned an upward curve with Kindle and eBooks. The tool allows you to search and browse millions of books across Amazon.

You can set up a search based on every word and key phrase inside a book, not just for the book title or the author. As the screenshot shows, there are many ways to look into the content of a book.

Then you can dive into Amazon Reader, and preview publisher-provided sample pages, go to linked book sections, or look for all references to a term or phrase.

Book Daily is specifically about book samples for book lovers. With 80, books and their first chapters on offer, I would say that this is a great site to bookmark if you want to grab hold of clues on what to read next.

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From critically acclaimed, award-winning author Michelle Huneven, a sharp and funny novel of a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners. Collection sample book cover Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: A Novel by Deepa Anappara · Search All Award Reading Lists. Back to Google Books has a great full-text book search and its Library Unlike book sites with sample chapters, DailyLit really takes you through

Book sample search - Missing From critically acclaimed, award-winning author Michelle Huneven, a sharp and funny novel of a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners. Collection sample book cover Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: A Novel by Deepa Anappara · Search All Award Reading Lists. Back to Google Books has a great full-text book search and its Library Unlike book sites with sample chapters, DailyLit really takes you through

I'd come to know Belinda through my cooking classes. When I first came to the AUUCC, Belinda had already retired and was filling in as the church secretary, a supposedly temporary arrangement that ended up lasting twelve years.

She was small, five foot one, and had enormous eyes. An old-timer told me that she'd once been the most beautiful woman at the church, but in the AUUCC's office she'd been brusque and impatient, and treated us all like wayward tenth graders. You had to go through her for the key to the copying machine or an appointment with the minister; she was the dragon guarding the pearl and she terrified me until we found common ground at the stove.

She was a serious, adventurous cook. My most recent memoir, Yard to Table: A Suburban Farmer Cooks, had just come out, and on one of the Sundays I'd missed, I was up north promoting it.

That book, Our Best Year, was about my senior year in high school when I took over cooking dinner from my working mother, thus inadvertently and radically improving our relationship, if only for a year. It concerns Tom. Tom Fox was sixty-four.

When he came to the AUUCC eight years ago, everyone knew he wouldn't stay that long, certainly not as long as his predecessor, the Reverend Dr. Sparlo Plessant, who served for twenty-eight years.

Charlotte had never liked Tom Fox's sermons. I knew this because she and I avidly took them apart every Sunday after worship. She still missed Sparlo Plessant's intellectually rigorous, witty sermons, which were undeniably spellbinding.

Having tackled sermon writing in seminary, I thought Tom Fox's efforts excellent in their own way: they were deceptively relaxed and in fact were quite a nimble blend of ideas, anecdotes, and poetry.

Charlotte didn't appreciate how skillfully he made complex ideas so accessible. Tom duly emailed me his sermons every time I ditched church. Just that morning I'd received his most recent offering, along with a message that said Missed you today.

Lunch this week? I hadn't answered yet because, if I went to lunch, I was afraid he'd ask about my ongoing truancy and I didn't know what to say. But Sheila hates it so much, she won't come to church anymore. I told Tom he was alienating people, but he insists that repeating silly things sets a warmer, friendlier tone.

Tom's not getting the order of service in on time, he's missed appointments, and he's only ever in the office on Wednesdays for staff meetings. Was once a month all the time? And I thought of our lunches in more practical terms: I was a restaurant critic and Tom Fox was game to go with me on review meals-and it's not so easy to find people free midday in the middle of the workweek to drive to Venice or Covina for lunch.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Tom's company and conversation. I did, often enough, and eight years of monthly lunches had made us close.

If he's leaving soon, well, then we have to start planning for an interim and budgeting for a search. You yourself have been pretty scarce. Here I thought I was having a midlife spiritual drift; come to find out, I was part of a general trend. I thought it was just me. We'll put you in the chute!

Oh, Dana! You've just solved our other conundrum! The church presidency was a six-year commitment: you spent two years as vice president, two years as president, and two years as president ex officio. As they trundled down the porch steps, I called after them, "Seriously, don't put me in the chute!

The AUUCC's plus members are a raffish mix of the highly educated left: Caltech and NASA scientists, schoolteachers, entertainment types and hospital workers, college professors, political activists, artists, and local soreheads.

We're not as integrated as we'd like to be-especially considering that our west Altadena neighborhood is about forty percent nonwhite-but we're working on it. The church is famous for its preaching, its social activism, and its enchanting if derelict three-acre gardens.

Tom Fox was the AUUCC's fifth minister and the first not to hail from New England. A lean, broad-shouldered Texan, he stood six foot four, with pelt-like white curls.

The two of us had been going out to lunch since he first came to the AUUCC. Sparlo Plessant, his predecessor, had told him that I was a restaurant critic and knew all the good places to eat; also that I'd been to seminary.

So a month into his first year, Tom invited me to lunch and, over Shanghai-style hand-torn noodles in San Gabriel, he asked me to be on his ministerial relations committee. But before I decided, he said, I should know that he didn't believe in ministerial relations committees: they encouraged malcontents to bellyache to committee members rather than approach the minister directly.

But since the AUUCC's bylaws mandated that he should have such a committee, his would meet for a friendly lunch. My joining would be a favor to him, he said, and a way for us to get to know each other. Flattered that the new minister wanted to get to know me, I perhaps didn't quite absorb the distinction between friendly lunch and functioning committee.

The committee consisted of me, Norma Fernandes, a quiet hospital administrator who kept our lunches to a strict one hour thank god! At our inaugural meeting, Tom reiterated that he would not countenance any complaints relayed from the congregation. Sam Rourke-Jolley either ignored or forgot Tom's edict because every month he reported a complaint: some people didn't like it that Tom didn't wear a robe; that the choir, too, was now robeless; and worse, that clapping went unchecked during worship.

And I will not respond to any grumblers too cowardly to face me. The Rourkes were founding members of the AUUCC and, three generations on, still our greatest benefactors.

Sam had married into the clan; his mother-in-law, the ancient Faithalma Rourke, was known to make the largest pledge every year-by a lot-and Sam's wife, Emma Rourke-Jolley, twenty years his junior and head of an HMO, was the only person ever to serve two terms as the AUUCC's president.

I-so not a powerhouse-spent two years on that do-nothing committee. We met at a ladies' lunch spot in Pasadena where Tom Fox, in his lovely Texas accent, described movies he'd seen and articles he'd read; he told stories we'd heard in sermons or would hear shortly.

I like to think we helped perfect his delivery. We paid for our own lunches, too, a cost I deducted from my taxes. Shortly after I rotated off the ministerial relations committee, Tom Fox convinced the board to amend the bylaws and eliminate it. He and I kept going to lunch, though, which, as I've said, was useful to me.

One-on-one Tom could be an excellent conversationalist; he was well read, thoughtful, and capable of the depth I usually reached with close female friends. I was hungry, too, for the conversation I'd loved in seminary, intense discussions of spiritual issues, theological trends, and ministry itself; subjects that my husband and my a-religious friends were not inclined to explore: faith, surrender, Baptist polity, the flames all mystics see-that sort of thing.

Some days, though, I couldn't get a word in edgewise with Tom. The man could talk. I was still hesitant to go to lunch with Tom because I knew he'd ask why I'd been ditching church.

And what would I say? That his liturgy annoyed me? Somehow, having a mission-to find out if and when he planned to retire-emboldened me. Plus, a favorite Vietnamese place had opened a second location that I needed to review.

Yes to lunch, I wrote to Tom. At the new Golden Deli 2, we scored a booth-yes! The bright new storefront restaurant had the same menu as the original, but not the scuffed, broken-in charm or-thankfully-the knot of people waiting to get in. Michelle Huneven was born in Altadena, California.

She received an M. Her first novel, Round Rock Knopf , was a New York Times notable book and a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction Award. Her third novel, Blame, Sarah Crichton Books, FSG, , was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Michelle has also received a GE Younger Writers Award and a Whiting Award for Fiction. She presently teaches creative writing at UCLA and lives with her husband, dog, cat, and African Grey parrot in the town where she was born. Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. close ; } } this. getElementById iframeId ; iframe. max contentDiv. scrollHeight, contentDiv. offsetHeight, contentDiv.

document iframe. Book Description. Editorial Reviews. Huneven treats us to a savory plot that blends spiritual yearnings with earthly pleasures. Forks out! Under pressure to find her next book idea, she agrees, and resolves to secretly pen a memoir, with recipes, about the experience.

That memoir, Search , follows the travails of the committee and their candidates—and becomes its own media sensation. Ultimately, the committee faces a stark choice between two very different paths forward for the congregation. Although she may have been ambivalent about joining the committee, Dana finds that she cares deeply about the fate of this institution and she will fight the entire committee, if necessary, to win the day for her side.

made me a believer. like Marilynne Robinson with a light vinaigrette. refreshingly candid and transparent. Huneven is one of those rare spirits. She knows what a rich and fraught sanctuary the sanctuary can be. Huneven is a wise storyteller. this novel has plot, character, structure and a delicious, deeply human pettiness that I think most honest readers will relate to.

wry and thoughtful. Huneven has total command of her material. Huneven is such a smart and funny writer. The strengths of Huneven's novel lie in her deep understanding of human nature.

It's fascinating to watch how skillfully Huneven moves committee members from one side to the other, and to watch, appalled, as the inevitable slowly happens. Those scenes are a master class in group dynamics. Search is a fun read. While the book is laced with plenty of humor which Dana herself does not always see , it is laced, too, with plenty of wisdom.

We can search, Huneven is saying, but you just never know what you might find. spiced with wit. it is not quite a satire, since Huneven has too much respect for all her seekers. full of intrigue, drama, and absurdity. often laugh-out-loud funny, the story is also heartbreaking.

Search does not hold back from the sloppy and sinful moments that so often happen in our church communities, but it holds on to what lies at the core of congregational life for so many of us: fellowship, a longing for holy mystery, and working toward a better world.

Sometimes this leads to hypocrisy, hubris, and disaster. But more often, the search is in fact sincere, hilarious, and full of grace. Huneven injects humor and tension. engaging and thought-provoking. The voting, the vetting, the drama, the discord, the anti-oppression training—it's all here.

tender, salty, and worthy of note. She knows, and cherishes, the absurdity of the human spirit. And there are recipes! The alliances and betrayals along the way reveal that even when a group of people share a common passion, the path to consensus can be tortuous.

With wry humor and keen moral nerve, she brings us deep into a group formed not by affinity but with a purpose—to select a new leader. We follow the hilarious, absorbing, shocking step by step of how and why intelligent, good-minded people make an entirely surprising decision.

With echoes of voices as disparate as those of Thomas McGuane and Barbara Pym, Huneven is an American original, attentive to the outscale beauties of the west and the fragility of its citizens and institutions. The wondrous Search tells the story of a group of people whose task is to unify around an important decision, and if that sounds possible, rest assured that this droll novel will demonstrate in hilarious and painful detail all the ways in which our best intentions run afoul of how powerfully we want what we want.

It's a front row seat to a juicy in-fight that's all too familiar to anyone who's ever tried to get something done by committee.

Huneven generously portrays the emotional questing that brings people into spiritual communities while also chronicling the rivalry, pettiness, and basic human failings that manifest in those communities.

The narrator of Search reflects that ministry—especially for the secular—is about asking, 'How do we live in this world?

Michelle Huneven is the author of four novels: Round Rock , Jamesland , Blame , and Off Course. Her books have been New York Times Notable Books and finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She teaches writing at University of California, Los Angeles. What do they want? Or church president, I bet. Once you skip a couple of Sundays, I'd found, it's easy to keep skipping. I poured out cups of ginger tea. We settled in at the kitchen table.

Tom Fox? But what good will it do to know if he is retiring? I saw them out. Don't put me in the chute! Previous page. Print length. Sticky notes. On Kindle Scribe. Publication date.

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This information helps us design a better experience for all users. Read with Libby Borrow ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more from your local library for free! Download Libby today! com Learn more about getting started with Libby. All over the world, millions of people read their library books with Libby.

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