98 to 99% of all books ever published are now out of print; the books we see for sale at the local chain bookstore constitute the tiniest fraction of the entirety of human print culture. As we track the most sought-after out-of-print titles in America, we've been fascinated to discover some of the choices that real readers make when they seek out books that are, by definition, not being actively marketed to them by the publishing industry.
| 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 | Hendrik Van Loon | The Arts |
| 4 | Andrew Loomis | Creative Illustration |
| 5 | Ralph W. Polk | The Practice of Printing |
| 6 | Larry Clark | Teenage Lust |
| 7 | Rien Poortvliet | Dogs |
| 8 | Rockwell Kent | World Famous Paintings |
| 9 | Henri Cartier-Bresson | The Decisive Moment |
| 10 | Henry Hensche | The Art of Seeing and Painting |
| Biography | ||
|---|---|---|
| Includes autobiography and memoirs, as well as biographies of athletes, politicians, artists, writers, etc. | ||
| 1 | Johnny Cash | Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words |
| 2 | Daniel Bragg Clayton | Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry |
| 3 | Jack McCullum | Unfinished Business : On and off the Court with the 1990-91 Boston Celtics |
| 4 | Charles M. Russell | Good Medicine: Memories of the Real West |
| 5 | Eugene Curtis | Saint-Just, Colleague of Robespierre |
| 6 | Norman Mailer | Marilyn, a Biography |
| 7 | T. E. Lawrence | The Mint |
| 8 | Bobby Fischer | My 60 Memorable Games |
| 9 | Robert Lee Scott, Jr. | God is My Co-Pilot |
| 10 | Paul Hoffman and Ira Pecznick | To Drop a Dime: The Mafia Hit Man's Uncensored Story |
| Children's | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fiction and nonfiction; young adult, fairy tales, poetry; picture books | ||
| 1 | Robb White | The Lion's Paw |
| 2 | Roald Dahl | The Gremlins |
| 3 | Sharon Kane | Little Mommy |
| 4 | Anne Alexander | The Pink Dress |
| 5 | Nan Gilbert | 365 Bedtime Stories: A Story for Every Day of the Year about the Children on What-a-Jolly Street |
| 6 | Sylvia Plath | The Bed Book |
| 7 | Dean Marshall | Wish on the Moon |
| 8 | Tasha Tudor | Becky's Christmas |
| 9 | Edna Miller | Mousekin's Golden House |
| 10 | Anna Elizabeth Bennett | Little Witch |
| 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 | Judith Copeland | Modular Crochet |
| 5 | Jack Howell | The Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast's Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods |
| 6 | Susanna Lewis | Knitting Lace: A Workshop with Patterns and Projects |
| 7 | Clementine Paddleford | How America Eats |
| 8 | Mary and Vincent Price | A Treasury of Great Recipes: Famous Specialties of the World's Foremost Restaurants Adapted for the American Kitchen |
| 9 | Ann Seranne, ed. | America Cooks: The General Federation of Women's Clubs Cookbook |
| 10 | Ruth Berolzheimer | The American Woman's Cook Book |
| Fiction and Literature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Current and classic titles, literary nonfiction, criticism, essays | ||
| 1 | Lynne Cheney | Sisters |
| 2 | Taylor Caldwell | Dear and Glorious Physician |
| 3 | Nora Roberts | Promise Me Tomorrow |
| 4 | Cameron Crowe | Fast Times at Ridgemont High |
| 5 | George Elford | Devil's Guard |
| 6 | Suzanne Brockmann | Get Lucky |
| 7 | Gore Vidal | Myra Breckinridge |
| 8 | Margaret Gibson | The Butterfly Ward |
| 9 | Nora Roberts | The Winning Hand |
| 10 | Sinclair Lewis | Cass Timberlane |
| History | ||
|---|---|---|
| US and international; from ancient to modern | ||
| 1 | Fletcher Pratt, ed. | Civil War in Pictures |
| 2 | William Manchester | The Death of a President, November 20-November 25, 1963 |
| 3 | Tate Cromwell Page | Voices of Moccasin Creek |
| 4 | Charles Townshend | The British Campaign in Ireland, 1919-1921 |
| 5 | Viktor Suvorov | Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? |
| 6 | R.P. Hunnicutt | Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank |
| 7 | William Camden | Britannia |
| 8 | Chris Dunning | Courage Alone: The Italian Airforce 1940-1943 |
| 9 | Elsie Johnson Ayres | The Hills of Highland |
| 10 | Jules Archer | The Plot to Seize the White House |
| Mysteries and Thrillers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Thrillers, whodunits, classics as well as modern titles; popular detectives and spies; "noir" and "true crime" | ||
| 1 | Ben Ames Williams | Leave Her to Heaven |
| 2 | Ellery Queen | Calamity Town |
| 3 | David Ellsworth | Smith County Justice |
| 4 | Mark Dawidziak | The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets |
| 5 | Rex Stout | Too Many Women |
| 6 | Frances Parkinson Keyes | Dinner at Antoine's |
| 7 | Stephan P. Clarke | The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion |
| 8 | Michael Gilbert | Smallbone Deceased |
| 9 | Margaret Frazer | The Outlaw's Tale |
| 10 | Anthony Bruno | The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer |
| Popular Science & Technology | ||
|---|---|---|
| Scientific titles directed at a general audience, cars, personal finance, health, computers and internet | ||
| 1 | Steve Belichick | Football Scouting Methods |
| 2 | Robert G. Middleton | 101 Ways to Use Your Ham Test Equipment |
| 3 | James Dines | How the Average Investor Can Use Technical Analysis for Stock Profits |
| 4 | Immanuel Velikovsky | Worlds in Collision |
| 5 | Henry Edwards Davis | The American Wild Turkey |
| 6 | Carl Sagan | Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record |
| 7 | David Marr | Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information |
| 8 | H.G. Wells | The Science of Life |
| 9 | David Attenborough | Discovering Life on Earth: a Natural History |
| 10 | Donald A. Mackay | The Building of Manhattan |
| Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror | ||
|---|---|---|
| Includes ghosts, aliens, science fiction, romance, high tech; reference and criticism | ||
| 1 | Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) | Rage |
| 2 | Sherrilyn Kenyon | Born of the Night |
| 3 | Ray Bradbury | Dark Carnival |
| 4 | Peter David | Babylon 5 : Out of the Darkness |
| 5 | Martha Wells | Element of Fire |
| 6 | Dara Joy | That Familiar Touch |
| 7 | Ira Levin | This Perfect Day |
| 8 | J.R.R. Tolkien | The Adventures of Tom Bombadil |
| 9 | J.R.R. Tolkien | Tree and Leaf |
| 10 | Del James | Language of Fear |
| Society and Culture | ||
|---|---|---|
| Travel, entertainment, current events, politics and social movements | ||
| 1 | James Mangan | The Secret of Perfect Living |
| 2 | Richard Bandler and John Grinder | Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming |
| 3 | George Kingsley Zipf | Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort |
| 4 | John R. Swanton | Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida |
| 5 | A. C. Haddon | The Decorative Art of British New Guinea : A Study in Papuan Ethnography |
| 6 | Peter Beard | The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise |
| 7 | Dorothea Brande | Wake up and Live! |
| 8 | Gontran De Poncins | Kabloona |
| 9 | Lucas E. Bridges | Uttermost Part of the Earth: Indians of Tierra del Fuego |
| 10 | John Kerry | The New Soldier |