The BookFinder.com ReportAugust 2007

• In the News
• Featured Titles
• Top 10 Lists

Out of Print Books in the News

There's a distinctly masculine tone in this year's list. Ranking high in our results, alongside the knitting guides, romance novels and children's classics, are the following:

• The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007, by Kingsley Amis, writing as Lt.-Col. William Tanner. This book has the further subtitle of "a mine of information for would-be Bonds" and includes information taken from the Fleming canon which the rest of us can use to make ourselves just a little more suave and dangerous. Amis and Bond author Ian Fleming were friends -- perhaps this explains why Amis waited till the year after Fleming's death to publish a tongue-in-cheek "007" instruction manual?
• The Great Tool Emporium by David Manners. Surely a book that describes itself as "a pictorial extravaganza of the tools of yesterday and today" belongs on every homemade coffee table. The author provides us with pictures of ancient tools and information about how they developed into the modern tools we know, love, and sometimes hurt ourselves with today.
• Hell, I Was There! by rancher, big game hunter and firearms innovator Elmer Keith. With one eye on his prey and one on the pesky game wardens, Keith travels from the American West to the fields of Africa, leaving countless spent cartridges and a fair amount of carnage in his wake.
• With Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods and The American Wild Turkey by Henry Edwards Davis in your library, next Thanksgiving you'll be able to single-handedly bring home dinner and win the football game!
• Beyond Backpacking by Ray Jardine, considered by some to be an innovative approach to extreme lightweight backpacking, considered by others to be radical and dangerous. He advocates carrying as little as possible and explains how to make a lot of your own gear, thereby saving both weight and money.

Featured Titles

I Do: Achieving Your Dream Wedding by Jessica Simpson

While her marriage may not have been an unqualified success, Jessica's nicely-illustrated wedding guide has many creative ideas for brides-to-be. In the real world of non-popstars, "dream weddings" may not be a practical aspiration, but that's why it's fun to dream.

Flash in the Pan: Life and Death of an American Restaurant by David Blum

Listed in the "Recommended Reading" section in the back of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, this book describes the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of New York restaurant The Falls in the 1990s. The fickle nature of fashion and success can wreak havoc on a business that depends on a steady income to pay its creditors. When the in-crowd stays out, bad things happen.

Practical Cogitator: The Thinker's Anthology ed. by Charles P. Curtis and Ferris Greenslet

A massive anthology compiled by the Vice President of the United States under Hoover (Curtis), initially to give WWII soldiers something edifying to read during lulls in battle. Contains diverse essays, poems and quotations from the writings of philosophers, theologians, artists, political leaders and public figures concerning history, art, literature, etc.

Top 10 Lists