2023 Halloween Treasure Hunt

It's October, and the Halloween Hunt has returned!

The object of the game is to solve our clues (in verse!) and go to the LibraryThing page each clue is talking about.

Go HERE for the hunt.

You have two weeks—until Tuesday October 31st at 11.59 pm Eastern Time—to find all the jack-o-lanterns hidden around the site and gather them all together into one troupe.

Use this thread to brag, ask for and give hints, etc.

We will be awarding profile badges to anyone who finds at least two jack-o-lanterns, and anyone who finds all 12 will be entered into a drawing for a LibraryThing prize.

Helpful tips

Please, use the spoiler tag when posting hints or suggestions. Here's how:

To use the spoiler tag, type the following before whatever you'd like to hide:

<spoiler>

And this, at the end of what's hidden:

</spoiler>

Neat!

Hooray!

Oooh--thank you!!

Love the hunts. Stuck however on 5 6 and 12 x happy Halloween

There should be a page showing all of conceptDawg's art for these hunts. I love it.

>6 tina1969:

#5: Every month, LT highlights a List of the Month, the latest of which should be visible in the news feed on your Homepage. The riddle straight-up tells you which particular one you need to click to get the jack-o-lantern.

#6: This is a riff on a line from a poem. Specifically, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker". You'll want the author.

#12: The riddle contains the location Copley Lawn, which is in Georgetown, Washington DC. Nearby is a set of stairs (also mentioned in the clue) that feature prominently in one of the most famous horror movies of all time.

>8 Petroglyph: I'm in the UK so thanks for the clue for 12.
Found the list page for clue 5 and have gone back 2 years but no luck x

#5 gave me the most trouble. I actually went to the correct page several times but didn't get a pumpkin until I refreshed the page...

Still, got them all in the end.

Okay, I am editing this post fully because the two I was having issues with seemed to have fixed themselves.

Still stuck on number 8, though. Not specific enough to help me search.

>10 Maddz: I was in the correct place, refreshed and pumpkin appeared x happy Halloween

Fun! I got them all, although I needed the hint from >8 Petroglyph: for #12.

Thanks to all the LT staffers who created the clues, and to conceptDawg for the cute illustration, and to all who share hints!

>11 Watry: For #8 you're looking for an author ; the clues hint at titles

>14 tardis: Ah thank you, I was looking for her most famous book , so at least I was on the right track, I guess.

>13 tardis: Same for me. I think it's the quickest I've complete a hunt. I do so enjoy them!

>16 Marissa_Doyle: I thought afterwards I should have saved the hunt for later, as I have to take my mother-in-law to the dentist and I need something for a reward afterwards :)

I don’t know how to navigate to old lists. Help!

>10 Maddz: Thanks for the refresh hint Maddz.

>18 2wonderY: You can either 1) go to Home > lists to browse (you can change any of the modules there to show up to 100 rows) or 2) search using the site search and then select "lists" from the left menu

>7 al.vick: Absolutely. These are wonderful illustrations.

The hunt has become buggy as of late. I went to the page that Lantern #5 leads to and nothing happened until I refreshed it. Then I got the lantern.

I'm pretty sure I'm on the right page for #5 (it's in the right sidebar on my home page), I've refreshed multiple times, but I still haven't gotten a lantern.

>9 tina1969:

I'm in Sweden, and I wouldn't have known either if I hadn't been to the location myself (quite by accident, actually).

>23 timepiece: It's the page for a thing that happened two years ago.

>25 anglemark:

Ah. I assumed the "monthly custom" was the "List of the Month" announcement, so I just looked at the most recent one (which was on-topic). I now have 12 lanterns (only one refresh needed).

>10 Maddz: Thanks for the reload hint, I was busily trying to approach that page from all directions and urls to get it to register!

For #5, I know what it is, but how do you discover which list was done in a particular month?
I can't even see all lists, there's only 'recent', 'active', 'popular' and those 'I might like'

>29 paradoxosalpha:, thanks, I got there!!! I knew there was a way :)

A good hunt! I learned more about Lists and Legacy Libraries on the site, and how to play with the information.

Any hints on (what I think are) nonfiction answers? I am stuck on 2, 4, and 9. I have tried the history of..., fact-finding ideas, etc.

>32 ballet7439:

Are you looking at the tag pages? When a clue seems to point to a topic, that's your best bet.

>33 paradoxosalpha: ok thanks, I will check that out!

>22 anglemark: That's still happening. I was sure I had the right page, went to it over and over, then came to this thread and saw your post. Refreshing the page did give me the jack-o-lantern. Thanks.

The AI search feature proved surprisingly useful for some of the ones I didn't know.

>35 laytonwoman3rd: Yep. Same for me. But now I'm at 12/12 :-) Nice hunt!

Reminding people that when you get to #5 you have to refresh the page to get your pumpkin

Got all twelve, though admittedly it took me forever to figure out #6;
And I was overthinking #12 (anti-hint: It's nothing to do with the words "Hoya Saxa" or the gargoyle drain spouts)
Figures they would be a "Tim clues"! 🎃

>22 anglemark: Still trying. I swear I have the right page.

>23 timepiece: also!!

>22 anglemark: Thank you for posting that refreshingly helpful comment!

I was sure I was in the right place for #5 and couldn't figure out why no lantern was coming up, but now I have it

..and I had to revisit the same page four times before #12 popped up as correct.

>8 Petroglyph: Thank you for the hints. They were a big help. I normally don't do the treasure hunt, so this was my first and I was able to get it done.

Consolidated hints are up; but so far, only for 5, 6, 8 and 12.

Please also have a look at the General Strategies thread for tips on hunting, collected over many hunts.

And done! That went quite quickly considering that I pay no attention to the now almost totally American holiday of Hallowe'en and even less attention to the genre of horror. Although I admit to having read the book for Tim's Pumpkin #12.

Such fun! I got them all pretty quickly, but did need a bit of help for 6 and 8.

Got them all, thanks! I needed the hints for 6 and 12 - and, of course, help for 5.

I love the scary flamingo!! Nice one, conceptdawg.

Got them all! Thanks for the fun hunt!

Congrats to all who have found them all.

Could I have some help for #9 please

I have looked at tag pages for Pumpkin, pumpkins, carved pumpkins, Jack o'lantern. Refreshed the pages (as suggested above). I think I must be on the wrong track or that they are also known by another name that I don't know.

Edit - found it forgot to try the plural for Jack o'Lantern

Fun hunt

Yay, another hunt! 🥳

I need some more help with #12. I read the hints above and in the hints thread, but I still have no clue. The movie I googled doesn't seem to be on LT. 🤷‍♀️

>51 Ennas: The movie is cataloged here (basically all films are). It's a true classic and was released fifty years ago.

>52 anglemark: Then I must have googled the wrong movie. 🤷‍♀️ Help? 🙏

>53 Ennas: The movie starred Linda Blair. Was a much-talked movie at the time.

>54 perennialreader: Got it! Thanks!

Very fun!

Another great hunt (and I love the way that it always shows new parts of the LT site)! Thanks to everyone!

>50 calm: I had the same problem. What should have been the easiest one gave me the most trouble!

Still not getting #5. Went to October 2021 and refreshed but nothing.

Got all but one of them. #2 is driving me crazy. I tried tags as suggested in >33 paradoxosalpha: but can’t seem to get it right. ETA I got it, right after posting. 😂🎉

>60 Storeetllr: Ditto on #2 driving me insane.
The rest I breezed through.
Care to nudge me a direction?

>61 Nodecaf: For #2 What Halloween-related thing are spirits and specters synonyms for? And don't forget that spirits and specters are plural

Stuck on 5

>62 Watry: Thanks, just the nudge I needed! I was going too literal & doing tag mashes.

>59 hredwards: same for me

>63 DKnight0918:

#3 2023 horror film set in the mentioned city, based on a classic who-done-it

>65 DKnight0918: I keep trying and refreshing like everyone says but it's not working.

I think I am seriously overthinking # 11. I have the author and the book, but those don't seem to be what I should be looking for to get the jack o'lantern. Any clues to put me on the right track?

>68 TsarinaTyna: #11 From the clue: "we’ll find what you’ve read" and "Legacy". An author's library?

>68 TsarinaTyna: The last line of the clue (and the stanza before) hints at what you're looking for Legacy Library which you should see a link to on the right of the relevant author page.

>67 hredwards: I swear I refreshed a dozen and a half times, and it didn’t work for me. I had to get there a different and, maybe, specific way. And then when I refreshed it worked.

caramellunacy Thank you!! That's the only thing I hadn't tried! Lol. Now I have all my jack o'lanterns!!

Any help for #7? THANKS in advance!!

>73 iluvvideo: I did a tagmash (search tags with terms separated by commas) for terms from the clue picture book, witch, dragon and chose a likely looking result!

I finished and it was a pretty fun hunt!
Anyway, I hope you all have a good spooky month I guess.

Is there anyone else stuck on #1 ?
I have tried everything I can think of

>67 hredwards: and possibly others with refresh angst ...

Posts regarding this "refreshing" difficulty brings to mind that perhaps-maybe-possibly (?) what you're doing with your specific operating system is not clearing the cache and replacing the webpage with the latest version.

On a a Mac (Apple), to refresh (replace the webpage), you hold down the shift key while clicking the refresh symbol ↻ in the browser bar. I've had absolutely no trouble collecting the Jack O'Lanterns (except #4, which I have given up trying to solve).

Been too long since I used a Windows OS, but if this message might help you, there are lots of great people here to advise.

And sorry if I've spoken out of turn, and *everyone* was already replacing the webpage correctly. No intention of being a pedantic know-it-all.

>76 paulmdh: The best clue is Linus. He's a cartoon character.

>76 paulmdh: You might need to get a bit more Snoopy on this site by looking for a themed book from Linus' best friend from a well known comic strip.

Thanks to all who provided clues. I've got 12 / 12 now!

Thank you. That was so much fun!

>77 SandyAMcPherson:

#4: A big Halloween-esque celebration in Mexico is called el día de los muertos. What is that in English?

>69 perennialreader: >70 Caramellunacy: New to me. Thanks.

>82 Petroglyph: I know what it is in English, but sadly that hasn't helped. I am tired of clicking on works with that tag. Have you any suggestions that might help?

>84 2manybooksUK:

#4: It's not a specific work, but the same kind of thing that clue #2 pointed to.

>84 2manybooksUK: Same here, I messed around a lot with that phrase.
So thanks for trying to be subtle, >82 Petroglyph:, but I also explored tags, CK, and likely-looking authors as well as book titles, as apparently did "2manybooksUK"

>85 Petroglyph: #2 is the only other one on which I am absolutely stuck, even though I get the gist!

My first time getting all the answers with out hints.

Got them all!! :D

Thank you for another fun hunt.

Updated Consolidated hints done to this point.

Please also have a look at the General Strategies thread for tips on hunting, collected over many hunts.