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8 Great Sites to Do a Book Search by Plot or Subject

Books are wonderful things; they give you a pathway to enter the world of fantasies, delve into history, solve mysteries, and so much more. But two things that haunt readers around the world are not knowing which book to read next and forgetting the name of that one amazing book they read long ago.

That's when the internet comes to the rescue. There are many websites that not only give you suggestions for new books according to your taste, but also help you conduct a book search by the plot.

Google Books works the way Google's primary search engine operates. It has a library of digitized books. So, when you look for a book by its plot, it conducts the search within seconds and presents you with appropriate results from millions of books.

If you need a deep dive, you can go to Google's Advanced Book Search, which allows you to narrow down your search by mentioning details like the publisher's name, book title, and subject. Even if you half-remember the book title, you will likely be able to find what you're looking for.

GoodReads has a group that goes by the name: "What's the Name of That Book?" You can post a summary of a book's plot or storyline, and people will jump to the occasion of helping you find the title.

Make sure that you mention the genre of the book and its plot details in your post. Without this information, it can be quite difficult for users to give their suggestions. Mentioning when you read it or the year it was published can make it even easier to find the book without knowing its title as well.

TripFiction lets you match a location with a book. It features novels, travelogues, and memoirs set across the globe. Whether you're going on vacation and want to read something set in that destination, or you want to transport yourself to another country through the power of words, TripFiction has you covered.

The books are rated based not only on their content, but also location accuracy. This means you can seek out the books that give you that truly authentic travel experience. You can also check the books against other book review websites to get more opinions.

WhichBook is a mood-oriented book suggester web app for when you need just the right book for your mood. Just navigate to the site, and select the Books by Mood & Emotion tab to get started. Here, you can use the sliders to describe what type of mood you're looking for. WhichBook will then adjust your suggestions accordingly, helping you find books that match your tastes.

For example, you can search for books that are somewhat happy (closer to the Happy side of the slider). You can also drag the slider closer to Serious and Unpredictable to get a book that matches this exact mood.

But if you're looking to do a search by plot, just head to the Books by Character & Plot tab, and check off plot-specific parameters to start your search.

BookBrowse calls itself "your guide to exceptional books" and it certainly lives up to that promise. You can explore books across genres, settings, time periods, themes, and more. The site directs you to retailers to make your purchase. Alternatively, if you prefer digital, see our guide on where to buy ebooks.

But BookBrowse offers more than helping you find a book. It also lets you delve into it further, with discussion questions that analyze the story and themes of the book, along with additional educational information about the background of the book or the author.

LibraryThing's Book Suggester does exactly what you would expect: it suggests books, fortunately, extraordinarily well. Upon visiting the homepage, you are given the option to search using the Book Suggester or the somewhat unconventional Book Unsuggester.

Searching using the standard Book Suggesting feature, LibraryThing gives you a list of 200+ books that match the search term. It also yields a list of 20 of the most relevant and related titles based on over 40 million books in LibraryThing's user-submitted database.

If you are feeling adventurous and decide to try LibraryThing's Book Unsuggester, simply search for a book you own or enjoy and LibraryThing will show you the least likely to be related books.

Finding that one fiction book that will satisfy your cravings can be a challenge. Imagine browsing through hundreds of books, remaining dissatisfied with each book you find.

You can turn this scenario around by heading to FictionDB, which allows you to find the book you want, based on characters, age level, series, plot snippets, genres, themes, and whatnot! It's easy to use and gives phenomenal results.

Book Cave is one of the best websites to find content-rated books. The site rates books depending on their content—this ranges from Mild to Adult+, with Mild targeted towards children and young adults. That means if you're specifically looking for a children's book, you will only get children's book results.

Similarly, you can look for books for adults without having to go through a hoard of mild book results.

Additional Tips: Find a Book by Plot Search

When you have almost given up on finding a book, head to book databases, such as:

Abebook's Book Sleuth

The Library of Congress
Amazon's Advanced Book Search
Worldcat

These are like online libraries that give you a host of options to choose from. In fact, the Library of Congress has an amazing option called Ask a Librarian that allows you to send in an email with a book's details, and get authentic suggestions from real librarians.

Another interesting option is to head to Reddit with your queries. There are many subreddits, such as r/TipOfMyTongue and r/WhatsThatBook, that can help you find a book that you've been searching for. You can put in your request and you will be showered with suggestions.

In fact, if you only remember the book cover, you can describe it thoroughly and people will help you find it. Speaking of, there is a website dedicated to looking for books based on covers: Big Book Search. Just head to the website and enter the details of the cover that you remember. In no time, you will see a list of book covers and you can pick the one that looks the most similar.

Finding a Book by Plot Isn't as Hard as You Think

All these amazing websites were curated specially for book lovers. However, if you don't find what you need here, head to a local library and speak to the librarian. Chances are, they will be able to help you find the book you've been looking for when the internet fails to do it.

Finding a Book When You've Forgotten Its Title

By Gwen Glazer, Librarian

November 22, 2017

Check out selected results from NYPL Title Quest 2019, held August 2, 2019, as well as Title Quest 2018.

This is an update of a previous post by Sharon Rickson.

It can be tough to remember the title and author of a book you read a long time ago—even if it was a book that was really important to you. Fiction is cataloged by author and title, not by subject or plot line, which makes identifying books by just their storyline difficult.

Readers often ask librarians for help finding these kinds of books. And we can’t figure out the mystery every single time, but we do have a few tricks to help find the answer.

First, pin down everything you can remember about the book, plot, character names, time period in which the book may have been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the book.

Online resources can help with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all you have is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a good place to start; then, you can post to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, last but not least, leave a comment on this post!

Before You Start

Try Google! Type in everything you can remember about the book — as in, “picture book rabbi animals advice yiddish” — and scroll through the results. (That’s a real-life example of a book a patron was asking for: It Could Always Be Worseby Margot Zemach.)

You can also try googling one key detail you remember from a book. One of our librarians solved a book mystery by searching “USS You-Know-Who” — the name of a boat in the story that the patron happened to remember. (Another real-life example: She Flew No Flagsby Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

What’s the Name of That Book?
A Goodreads group with searchable discussion posts and thousands of questions and answers.
Name That Book
A LibraryThing group of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-adjacent — who help solve book mysteries via threaded discussions.
The Fiction_L listserv
Stumpers! Search archives of past questions, answered by an intense book-ish community, or subscribe and post a new one.
Reddit’s whatsthatbook thread
A nearly endless thread of users trying to help other users remember book titles, including several frequently requested books. Especially good for science fiction and fantasy.
"Stump the Bookseller" blog
A cool indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains extensive, searchable archives — and offers a $4 service for personalized help. Lots of children’s books here.
Big Book Search
If you can only remember what the cover looks like, try this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library card)

How to Move On

Sometimes, it's just not going to happen, and you can't find that elusive book you've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The world is full of great books! Here are a few ways to find more...

Check out recommendations from our book experts here at NYPL. We offer suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
If you'd like a personalized recommendation, find us on Twitter or fill out our What Should I Read Next? email form.
Want a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to leave a comment and tell us about a book you’re trying to remember! Our library staff members will pop in and check it periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to make guesses and suggestions.

More Suggestions

If you can remember just one word, use the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a particular word.
Goodreads’ browse-able lists of titles that readers have shelved in unique categories, such as authors’ professions or decades of publication, is also be helpful.
For recently published books, the reviews in Booklist Online are broken down by detailed genre.

History. Help

View tab history
View all history
Delete pages from history
Clear all history
Synchronize history
Keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures for working with history

The tab history contains the 12 most recently opened pages.

If you don't find the page you're looking for in this list, go to the entire story. The entire history stores the sites you have visited in the last 90 days. If you need the site for a longer period, bookmark it.

To view a list of previously opened pages on a tab:

Open the tab.
Press and hold the icon.

The icon only appears on tabs where you have viewed multiple pages. If the icon is not available, go to the entire story.

Note. You cannot cancel saving history in Yandex Browser. If you do not want to save your browsing history, enter Incognito mode. nine0017

To quickly find the desired page, click the icon in the sidebar and enter the page name in the search.

If the icon is not needed, click on the sidebar → Tools and turn off the History option.

To view the entire history, click → History → History or press Ctrl + H.

To search for a page in the history, enter part of its name or address in the Search box. A list of pages that match the search term will be displayed on the right. nine0017

Click → History → History.
Highlight the desired pages.
Under the list of pages on the left, click Delete.

Click → History → History.
In the lower left corner, click Clear history.
In the Clear history window, specify the time period for which you want to delete the history.
Enable the Views option. nine0017
Disable all other options if necessary.
Press Clear.

The history is partially synchronized:

The history of the pages that the user visited on the computer is synchronized. If you reinstall the Browser and then enable sync, the history will appear on the browser://history page.
The history of pages visited by the user on other devices is not displayed in the Browser interface. But if, after synchronization, you start entering on one of the devices the address of the site that you visited on the other device, this address will appear in tooltips. The exception is the sites pinned to the Tableau. nine0017

To disable history sync:

Tap → Settings → Sync settings.
In the What to sync section, turn off the History option.

To perform gestures, hold down the right mouse button. Release the button after executing the gesture.

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Hot keys
Open list of downloaded files
Combinations of buttons
Return to the previous mind	. While holding it, press the left button.
Go to next page	Press the left mouse button. While holding it, press the right button.

If you are using a single-button mouse on macOS, all gestures must be performed by holding down the Ctrl key and the mouse button. nine0123

Press the left mouse button. While holding it, press the right button.

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Clipboard in Windows -

Microsoft Support

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Copy images and text from one computer to another using the cloud clipboard. Not only can you paste data from your clipboard history, but you can also pin items that you use all the time. nine0017

To find the clipboard history, press the Windows key+V. You can embed and pin frequently used items in the clipboard history by selecting an individual item from the clipboard menu. Pinning an item keeps it from being removed from the clipboard history so you have room for new items.

Share Windows on another device

Select Start > Parameters > system > buffer exchange .
Select Synchronize across devices and on.
Select Automatically sync the text I'm digging. The sync feature is tied to your Microsoft account or work account, so use the same login credentials on all devices. nine0017

Clipboard history help
Open clipboard options