I thought i replied back but don't see my message so retyping
first I really appreciate you writing back as I learn lot from you and also, perhaps I am still not writing my intention as best as I should(more example and code and clear explanation
but I am trying very hard. I will give your solution more hack to see if I can make them do what I ultimately trying to go

I am also trying out cookbook solution of

my @nodes = $doc->findnodes("/books/book/authors/author/
                          firstname[text()='Tom']/../
                          lastname[text()='Chris']/
                         ../../../title/text()");

for my $node (@nodes) {
             print $node->data, "\n";
}
[download]

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