Finding forgotten books

You can now find books at amazon.com by searching for any word inside them, not just author names and title keywords. This should help readers tracing dimly - but fondly - remembered books from childhood. Great for those times when you remember a character's name, or a phrase, or place, but not a title or author.

I wonder how many of BookSleuth's pleas for help I could now answer? Let me try one..

I'm looking for a picture/story book... I used to read it as a child about 20 years ago. It is a square book with a yellow cover and is a modern day version of Alice in Wonderland. A girl called Tuppence (with long blond hair) gets to a secret world through a magic cabinet. Once there she meets a man who looks like Stan Laurel wearing a long green coat and who keeps kippers and porridge in his pockets. She also meets some very big spiders.

Hmmm, a search on 'Tuppence and Magic Cabinet and Kippers' doesn't turn up anything promising. But Amazon has only (did I say only?) indexed 120,000 books so far, so some of the quirkier books might still be difficult to find.

It is already extremely useful for more academic research. I often remember, and want to get my hands on, essays I read at university but don't always remember what book or collection they're from. This allows me to search for an essay - e.g. Donna Harraway's Cyborg Manifesto - and find books on Amazon that reference it. Very handy.