I got into a conversation with a stranger earlier this week who recommended a book and its author to me; he also said he would be leaving town on Thursday (today) so I can’t hope to run into him any time soon.
I thought I’d look for it soon, but I’ve forgotten both the book and the author’s name.
The title is two words that are slightly oxymoronic, or vaguely contradictory , I think, an adjective and a noun. I also think there’s a syllable in the adjective that sounds like “div” or “dev” because I keep up with “Deviated Septum” and “Undivided Attention” though neither of those is close to the actual title. The concept of the title is some sort of received phrase of a scientific or literary nature, like “Negative Capability” rather than a concrete noun modified by a concrete adjective.
I’d recognize the author’s name if I heard or saw it, too, but I’m even vaguer there. He or she is definitely not famous because I’d never heard the name before, and the book is current. It’s a novel, just published, and the second or third book by the author, who has published a book of short stories a few years ago.
It’s not much to go on, but does any of this strike a bell for anyone?
Any more info? Genre? Literary fiction? Just how recent, last year or last ten years? Did he recommend it based on something similar he saw you reading or something you said?
A few guesses, which are probably wrong:
Truly Devious (2018) by Maureen Johnson, a young-adult murder mystery.
The Devil’s Playground (2023) by Craig Russell, a crime thriller set in Hollywood of the 1920s.
Demon Divine (2019) by John Conroe, 14th installment of an urban fantasy series.
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The genre was definitely literary fiction. The book he was reading was a novel published this year, and the short story collection was published maybe two or three years ago.
He’d seen me reading a book from the local library, and we were discussing library selections, so he showed me his.
Why “Kelly Link” @The_wind_of_my_soul ? The first name “Kelly” faintly rings a bell. I don’t think that’s it, but there’s some similarity there in my mind.
If you know which library he borrowed it from, you might try searching their online catalog. Usually you can narrow it down by publication year (2023), type of material (printed books), and words (and often even substrings like div* and dev*) in the title. When I tried that with my library catalog, I didn’t find any good matches.
ChapGPT can’t tell you who the author of “Ephemeral Devotion” is?
I don’t think that’s it, but I could tell you for sure if I knew the author’s name, I think.
My first thought was that there would be multiple titles named that, what with there being a million or more new books annually. Book titles are not unique! But searching at worldcat.org, I did not find any called Ephemeral Devotion.
Because that book was just published (in March of this year), because she’s published several books of short stories, and because White Cat, Black Dog is a vaguely contradictory title.
Ah, ok. The one thing I’m sure of is the two word title.
The guy did say he was returning the book to the library today and that he’d found it on the New and Recommended shelf, so i can look there in a day or two.
