I just bought a bunch of new books.
Tom Finder is the fifth from the bottom. Two of the other books I got, I have not included in this picture, because I am going to get them for my oldest sister for Christmas, and although I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, I don’t want to take chances.
See, it turns out I was entitled to get this gift card from Amazon for $100, so I claimed it, and then I spent it. I spent my money very sensibly, which allowed me to get free shipping and two of those books for free, and I ended up with a dozen of them. A baker’s dozen. I mean, fourteen – the dozen of an extremely generous baker. I am exceptionally pleased with myself, and I am most excited about Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, which I am putting off reading because I enjoy to delay gratification.
Anyway, I read Tom Finder first of the new-to-me books above pictured (only three are new), because I want to read the book to which Getting the Girl is the sequel, and it’s not yet in at the library, and because I thought I wasn’t going to like it that much. I knew it was about a boy living on the streets, and I didn’t like Heck Superhero, which was similarly themed; whereas I loved The Doll-Mage and Keturah and Lord Death. But indeed it was quite, quite, quite wonderful.
Tom finds himself on the street and can’t remember anything about his life before. But he meets a man called Samuel who tells him that he is a Finder, and he must find Samuel’s son, Daniel Wolflegs, who has gone missing. Samuel says that Tom has to find Daniel before he can find his own home. Tom gets good at finding things – money, books, library cards, food – and he writes down all the things he can figure out about himself, so he won’t forget again. He comes up with a theory that words are in charge of everything – because he writes things down and discovers they are true. He writes down “Tom is nice”, and he always tries to be nice after that – because he remembers that he has written down that he is.
I really, really liked this. I am about to write a geeky fangirl letter to Martine Leavitt and tell her how much I admire her. Because honestly, her books are very very good. Tom Finder was. I feel guilty for reading it as a substitute for Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me. I completely forgot about Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me while I was reading it, which is funny given how much I’ve been yearning to read Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me for the past, I don’t know, week and a half. And I forgot all about the stabbing pain about which I am too much of a lady to say more. And I was too absorbed to stop long enough to write down in my commonplace book the bits I wanted to write down in my commonplace book. So props to Martine Leavitt. Again.
(Did I already discover she was Mormon, and then forget I had discovered she was Mormon? She’s Mormon. Who knew?)
Edit to add: This afternoon I went grocery shopping with my mum, and we stopped at Bongs & Noodles just for fun, but mainly I believe so she could get Chalice, and I was looking at bargain books, and I got Eleanor Rigby and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, both in hardback, for just shy of twelve dollars. It is a banner week for me and new books! So while I watched the very exciting LSU football game, I covered all my new paperbacks in contact paper, and I put plastic dustjacket covers on my new hardbacks until I ran out of plastic covers (need to order more).