Python file parsing, can't catch strings in new line

[woooee]

if ", by" in words or words.startswtih("by"): 

will find that one exeception but that gives you the author only and so you will have to back up one record if you want the title. Note that you lose your rstrip because on the next line your lstrip overwrites the variable returned by rstrip. Just use strip() instead of the 2 statements.