This is what I’m reading right now: The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti.

Do you notice an astonishing similarity between the cover art and the cover art of a certain other book?

That’s right! The books are totally different genres, but there’s a similar, woodblock-like quality to the cover art. That’s because David Frankland did them both! I love his work, and am so, so fortunate that he’s doing the covers for my books. Wait until you see the cover for my second novel, The Celestial Globe.

The Good Thief is about an orphan boy named Ren who knows nothing of his past, or why he is missing a hand. Like the other boys in the orphanage, he longs to be adopted. But he lives in a hardscrabble time of wagons and horses, bottled ink, and shotguns, so his deformity is something that will bring him pity but never, it seems, love, respect, or a family. But then he is adopted by a man named Benjamin, who claims that Ren is his long-lost brother. Benjamin turns out to be a con artist who has adopted Ren precisely because of his missing hand. As Ren helps Benjamin trick people out of their money, we see that Benjamin’s greatest skill is his ability to seduce people with a good story.

What Benjamin’s real story is—or Ren’s—isn’t clear to me yet, but I’m enjoying the novel so far. I love the odd characters—everybody in this book seems to have a deformity, whether it’s a toothless dentist, a near-deaf woman, or people who are so tender-hearted they’re easily tricked. And the scene where Benajmin feeds Ren slices of an orange is really beautiful.

Speaking of hands, my friend Mordicai sent me this image:

It’s by an artist named Taint Tin. Mordicai asks if Petra is going to get a mechanical tin hand in the future…who knows?

Now, in my household of two (well, three if you count my cat), the big topic of conversation is the economy. Ok, I guess that’s a big topic for lots of people right now. But it’s especially interesting to talk things over with my husband because he’s a finance economist at NYU and runs/contributes to a blog about the current crisis. Check it out.

About a week ago, I was at a bar with several other New York-based writers of young adult fiction, and we were wondering what the economic downturn will mean for writers and readers. So, what do you think? If you’re a writer (or editor, bookseller, etc.), how do you think the publishing world will change? Will it change? If you’re a reader, will your reading habits change?