The BookFinder.com ReportAugust 2005

Out of Print Books in the News

The hotly contested 2004 presidential race led to massive demand for John Kerry's anti-war book The New Soldier and Lynne Cheney's frontier lesbian romance Sisters. The race may be over, but readers are still looking for out of print political books from the 1960s and 1970s providing context to current headlines.

Republican Senator and 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater inspired a generation of young conservatives with his libertarian ideals. His 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, discussed not only his strong opposition to Communism, but also many ideas that remain part of contemporary political discourse: the flat tax, the reduction of federal spending, the privatization of social security, and reduced regulation of businesses.

W. Mark Felt, the former associate director of the FBI, was recently revealed to have been Deep Throat. His 1979 memoir, The FBI Pyramid from the Inside, dealt with his experiences as the #2 man at the FBI, supporting J. Edgar Hoover's work, and standing up to the charges of civil libertarian critics. Felt also unambiguously denied being Deep Throat; ironically, the book was published while he was himself on trial for ordering FBI agents to engage in illegal burglaries. Demand for copies of the book has peaked, as readers try to learn more about the man who brought down a government.

Cards As Weapons by Ricky Jay
Magician and author Ricky Jay has been showing up everywhere. We've seen him featured in Talk of the Nation, MythBusters, and Boing Boing. His 1977 book Cards as Weapons teaches card scaling, the fine art of throwing simple playing cards, and includes photos of him throwing a playing card 190 feet at a speed of 90 miles an hour, a feat that landed him in the Guiness Book of World Records. Long out of print, the book is widely sought after by creative magicians card sharks, and hobbyists.
Bambi's Children by Felix Salten
Bambi becomes a family man (deer?) in the author's sequel to his 1923 original. Salten repeats the mother-deer-in-peril storyline; Bambi couldn't save his mother from the hunter, but his twin children, Geno and Gurri, grow up to save theirs from the evil winter wolf.
Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader
Published in 1965, Ralph Nader's first book was a scathing criticism of the poor safety design of the Chevrolet Corvair. The resulting negative publicity caused GM to redesign the car, and helped launch the career of the muckraking consumer advocate and later three-time Presidential candidate.

Top 10 Lists

Arts and Music
Painting, photography, dance, music, etc.; Architecture and design; Books about art and artistic movements; museum and auction catalogs
1 Madonna Sex
2 Glen Cleeton General Printing
3 Henri Cartier-Bresson The Decisive Moment
4 Hendrik Van Loon The Arts
5 Larry Clark Teenage Lust
6 William Cullen Bryant Picturesque America
7 Thomas Craven A Treasury of American Prints
8 Edward S. Curtis Portraits from North American Indian Life
9 Rockwell Kent, ed. World-Famous Paintings
10 Ralph W. Polk The Practice of Printing
Biography
Includes autobiography and memoirs, as well as biographies of athletes, politicians, artists, writers, etc.
1 Hunter S. Thompson The Curse of Lono
2 C.K. Shepherd Across America by Motor-Cycle
3 Charles M. Russell Good Medicine: Memories of the Real West
4 P.J. O'Brien Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom
5 W. Mark Felt The FBI Pyramid from the Inside
6 Bobby Fischer My 60 Memorable Games
7 Page Smith John Adams
8 T.E. Lawrence The Mint
9 Golda Meir My Life
10 Paul Hoffman To Drop a Dime
Children's
Fiction and nonfiction; young adult, fairy tales, poetry; picture books
1 Robb White The Lion's Paw
2 Joseph Chipperfield The Story of a Great Ship
3 Roald Dahl The Gremlins
4 Watty Piper, ed. The Bumper Book
5 Felix Salten Bambi's Children; the Story of a Forest Family
6 Holling C. Holling The Book of Indians
7 Dean Koontz Oddkins: A Fable for All Ages
8 Anne Alexander The Pink Dress
9 Marilyn Kaye A Day with No Math
10 Nan Gilbert 365 Bedtime Stories
Crafts and Hobbies
Cooking, gardening, collecting, pets, how-to books, etc.
1 June Hemmons Hiatt The Principles of Knitting
2 Alice Starmore Aran Knitting
3 Ricky Jay Cards as Weapons
4 Andrew Loomis Creative Illustration
5 Penny McMorris Crazy Quilts
6 Vincent and Mary Price A Treasury of Great Recipes
7 Alice Medrich Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts
8 Elly Sienkiewicz Spoken without a Word: A Lexicon of Selected Symbols with 24 Patterns from Classic Baltimore Album Quilts
9 Susanna E. Lewis Knitting Lace
10 Libby Lehman Threadplay with Libby Lehman: Mastering Machine Embroidery Techniques
Fiction and Literature
Current and classic titles, literary nonfiction, criticism, essays
1 Taylor Caldwell Dear and Glorious Physician
2 Shane Stevens Rat Pack
3 Nora Roberts Promise Me Tomorrow
4 Cameron Crowe Fast Times at Ridgemont High
5 Taylor Caldwell This Side of Innocence
6 Sinclair Lewis Cass Timberlane
7 Hervey Allen Anthony Adverse
8 A.J. Cronin The Green Years
9 Robert Klane The Horse is Dead
10 Zane Grey The Vanishing American
History
US and international; from ancient to modern
1 Douglas E. Nash Hell's Gate: The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket
2 Jo White Linn Surry County, North Carolina, Wills, 1771-1827
3 Tate Cromwell Page Voices of Moccasin Creek
4 Tom Lea The King Ranch
5 R.P. Hunnicutt Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank
6 Kenneth Roberts, ed. March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold's Expedition
7 Fletcher Pratt, ed. Civil War in Pictures
8 R.P. Hunnicutt A History of the American Light Tank: Volume 1 Stuart
9 William Manchester The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972
10 Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips What Everyone Should Know About the 20th Century: 200 Events That Shaped the World
Mysteries and Thrillers
Thrillers, whodunits, classics as well as modern titles; popular detectives and spies; "true crime"
1 James Patterson Virgin
2 Lindsey Davis Silver Pigs: A Detective Novel in Ancient Rome
3 James Clavell Whirlwind
4 Ben Ames Williams Leave Her to Heaven
5 Henry Webster The Whispering Man
6 Charles McCarry The Last Supper
7 William S. Baring-Gould, ed. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes
8 David A. Yallop In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I
9 Charles McCarry The Better Angels
10 Frances Parkinson Keyes Dinner at Antoine's
Popular Science & Technology
Scientific titles directed at a general audience, cars, personal finance, health, computers and internet
1 T. Gilbert Pearson Birds of America
2 Immanuel Velikovsky Worlds in Collision
3 John Bernard Walker An Unsinkable Titanic: Every Ship Its Own Lifeboat
4 Carl Sagan Murmurs of Earth
5 Andrew Tobias The Invisible Bankers: Everything the Insurance Industry Never Wanted You to Know
6 Dorothea Brande Wake up and Live!
7 Jacob Bronowski The Ascent of Man
8 Ralph Nader Unsafe at Any Speed: the Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile
9 Buddy Fey Data Power: Using Racecar Data Acquisition
10 Michael Levin Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
Includes ghosts, aliens, science fiction, romance, high tech; reference and criticism
1 Sherrilyn Kenyon Born of the Night
2 Jack Vance The Dark Side of the Moon: Stories of the Future
3 Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) Rage
4 Jon F. Merz The Fixer
5 Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King
6 Tim Powers On Stranger Tides
7 David Harvey The Song of Middle-Earth: J.R.R. Tolkien's Themes, Symbols and Myths
8 Ray Garton In a Dark Place
9 Martha Wells The Element of Fire
10 Isaac Asimov Pebble in the Sky
Society and Culture
Travel, entertainment, current events and politics
1 John Kerry The New Soldier
2 Barry M. Goldwater The Conscience of a Conservative
3 James-Charles Noonan Church Visible: the Ceremonial Life and Protocol of the Roman Catholic Church
4 C.S. Lewis The Allegory of Love; A Study in Medieval Tradition
5 Bill Mauldin Back Home
6 L. Fletcher Prouty The Secret Team
7 Peter H. Beard The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise: a Pictorial Documentation of the Origins, History and Prospects of the Big Game in Africa
8 Wilfred Thesiger The Marsh Arabs
9 Vironique Vienne French Style: How to Think, Dress and Shop like a French Woman
10 J. Edgar Hoover Masters of Deceit; the Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It