# Help me stock the ultimate (fictional) library **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 16, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444 "2013-10-16T23:07:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2021, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/161 "2021-12-31T17:37:54Z")
Bumped. In the thriller _Lock Every Door_ by Riley Sager, there’s reference to the Eighties YA romance _Heart of A Dreamer_ by Greta Manville, about an orphaned young woman who “through a twist of fate and the benevolence of a grandmother she never knew, finds herself living at the Bartholomew,” a storied old luxury apartment building in Manhattan. _Lock Every Door_ is itself set in the Bartholomew, where Manville lives. In Pat Conroy’s Vietnam War coming-of-age novel _The Lords of Discipline_, we meet Col. Edward T. Reynolds, an imperious member of the history faculty of a military academy obviously inspired by The Citadel, who wrote _The History of the Carolina Military Institute._ ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/162 "2021-12-31T21:50:42Z")
The serial _Scourge of the Spaceways_, by Roger Stone (later installments written by Hazel Meade Stone), from Robert Heinlein’s _The Rolling Stones._ The novels of Robin Masters, from _Magnum: P.I._ ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/163 "2022-01-01T03:29:12Z")
hmmmmm I missed this the first time around; lemme think on it ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/164 "2022-01-01T03:50:27Z")
I had to search to find the author but my contribution is _Dioretix: The Science of Matter over Mind_ by X Rum-Bubba This book pops up repeatedly in Alex Cox’s 1984 debut & masterpiece _Repo Man_; it is a satire of L. Ron Hubbard’s _Dianetics_. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/165 "2022-01-31T14:25:29Z")
Masterman, the bad guy’s valet in Agatha Christie’s _Murder on the Orient Express_ (1934), mentions that, while off-duty, he’s been enjoying Arabella Richardson’s _Love’s Captive_, presumably a romance. Wiki and Google suggest Richardson, and the book, do not actually exist. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/166 "2022-02-20T17:15:47Z")
Biggles Goes to Mars, definitely. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/167 "2022-02-20T21:03:44Z")
The Diary of River Song. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2022, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/168 "2022-02-21T00:53:40Z")
The Bible-The Ving Rhames Edition as mentioned on Bob’s Burgers ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/169 "2022-03-17T18:09:27Z")
I just finished Susanna Clarke’s fantasy novel _Piranesi_, which I really enjoyed. It refers in passing to the disgraced British academic Laurence Arne-Sayles’s occultist books _The Curlew’s Cry_ (1969), _What the Wind Has Taken_ (1976), _The Half-Seen Door_ (1979) and _The Labyrinth_ (2000), and to Angharad Scott’s biography, _A Long Spoon: Laurence Arne-Sayles and His Circle_ (publication year unmentioned). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/170 "2022-08-15T16:33:28Z")
Robert Harris’s _The Second Sleep_ is a novel set some 800 years from now, after the collapse of our technological society in late 2025 has returned the world to a quasi-medieval state. Two books are mentioned: _Antiquis Anglia_, an archeological study of pre-Apocalypse England, written by Dr. Nicholas Shadwell and illustrated by Oliver Quycke, and _Corpus Inscriptionum Angliarum_ by Thomas Howe, a record of messages left behind on the walls of churches by those looking for family, friends and loved ones, as the starving population of London fled the city. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2022, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/171 "2022-08-15T20:20:44Z")
_The Jug_ by Abraham Cady. A novel based on the author’s experiences in WWII. (As an aside; It is sometimes astonishing the things your brain will decide to remember. I read _QBVII_ over forty years ago. Yet somehow, I was able to immediately recall the title of a book written by one of the characters. Now ask me what I had for breakfast.) ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/172 "2022-08-20T06:02:58Z")
_Eagle Stones_ by Richard Madoc _Here Comes A Candle_ by Erasmus Fry ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/173 "2022-08-20T15:47:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Several tomes mentioned as being in Unseen University’s library. I’d start with _The Summoning of Dragons_ if some time traveler could obtain a copy with the now-lost burnt pages. Another from that library, albeit a rather dry read: _The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities Ankh and Morpork_ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/174 "2024-04-23T20:29:12Z")
I recently finished Hernan Diaz’s pretty good novel _Trust_, which is about Andrew Bevel, an aloof, even antisocial billionaire, and his ailing wife Mildred in Thirties NYC. It includes, as different long chapters, excerpts from a _Gatsby_-esque novel about Bevel (_Bonds_ by Harold Vanner), the draft of Bevel’s own ghostwritten autobiography (_My Life_), a memoir by his ghostwriter (_A Memoir, Remembered_ by Ida Partenza), and Mrs. Bevel’s journal (_Futures_). Partenza became a novelist after working with Bevel. Her other works are also mentioned in passing, including _Seven Stories, Before Words_ and _Arrow in the Gale._ ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/175 "2024-04-23T21:27:19Z")
“Gotho’s Folly” from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen, which is described as a “multiple-tomed suicide note” and quoted several times throughout the books. It contains such gems as “He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2024, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/176 "2024-04-24T06:03:40Z")
> [@D.E.S.K.Top668](#): > > There could probably be an entire section of the multidimensional Dewey Decimal System devoted to the Potterverse. I believe those, along with many other books mentioned in this thread, are cataloged in the Dewey Hexadecimal System. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/177 "2024-04-26T20:20:30Z")
Don’t forget the DHS subspace and alternate-timeline appendices, too! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/178 "2024-04-27T11:53:58Z")
_The Snake With Warm Blood_ by Maria Passos Guerra Viera, an award-winning novel mentioned in the Matador novel _The Albino Knife._ ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/179 "2024-04-28T05:22:07Z")
Some 10 years later, now it can be told: > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > BAH! I don’t want to read a bunch of comic strips, I want to read the original novel. All of Them! I think I can provide the first half of Snoopy’s _It was a Dark and Stormy Night_. Paraphrase from memory > It was a dark and stormy night. A door slammed. A maid screamed. Suddenly a pirate ship appeared on the horizon. While millions of people starved, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile a small boy in Kansas was growing up. Snoopy: “In part 2 I’ll tie this all together.” > …And so the ranch was saved… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2024, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444/180 "2024-04-28T08:32:57Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Paraphrase from memory > > > It was a dark and stormy night. A door slammed. A maid screamed. Suddenly a pirate ship appeared on the horizon. While millions of people starved, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile a small boy in Kansas was growing up. Pretty close. You missed the second line: “Suddenly, a shot rang out!” > **[The World’s Shortest Novel?: Snoopy’s “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” |...](https://ronaldbrichardson.com/metafiction/the-worlds-shortest-novel-snoopys-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night/)** > > Is a novel defined by its length or by a certain approach? Can we consider a story that is not long a novel if it is epic in scope, representing a range of experiences and emotions? If so, isn't Snoopy's It Was a Dark and Stormy Night a novel? What... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-stock-the-ultimate-fictional-library/671444.md?page=10)