BookFinder.com Report Fall 2009

Out-of-print and in demand

BookFinder.com tracks the most sought-after out-of-print titles in America.  The newly-released seventh annual edition is based on aggregate reader demand between July 2008 and June 2009.  This year’s list was influenced by both pop culture and financial chaos, each driving readers to seek out-of-print books ranging from a saucy memoir revealing a real housewife of New Jersey to nearly forgotten exposes on the Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve.

Out-of-Print Books Trends

The dominant news story from the past 12 months has been the worldwide economic recession, which influenced every aspect of society including the book world.  This year’s Society and Culture category has a heavy slant toward economic theory as people try to predict the future for our finances.

Wall St. Under Oath; the story of our modern money changers by Ferdinand Pecora

An insider's look at the "Pecora Investigation" into stock market irregularities during the 1920s written by the Counsel to the United States Committee on Banking and Currency.

Secrets of the Federal Reserve: The London Connection by Eustace Mullins

Originally commissioned by Ezra Pound, this conspiracy theory book suggests a group of international bankers, headquartered in London, secretly met on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1910 and founded the Federal Reserve Act to gain control of American financial systems, before buying up shares in the Federal Reserve Bank, appointing themselves to its Board of Governors, and then launching World War I, financing the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union, Hitler's rise to power, and causing the Great Depression.

The Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer

Published in 2001, this book is an overview of how money and the financial systems operate.  Written for the layperson, it explains the effects of modern money paradigms especially relating to debt and interest.

Out-of-Print books in the news

The following books have been out-of-print for years, but media interest in the past 12 months helped to create a surge of interest in each title.

Cop without a badge: the extraordinary undercover life of Kevin Maher by Charles Kipps

It wasn’t the life of Kevin Maher that cased demand for Cop Without a Badge to spike, but the hi-jinks of his ex-wife, and star of The Real Housewives of New Jersey TV show, Daniel Staub.  For the show’s entire season, Staub's co-stars had been alluding to her appearance in the book (where she is portrayed in a less than positive light) until the final episode when Cop Without a Badge was flashed on screen.  Since that time, the book has gone from flea market fodder, to an out-of-print collectible, to being re-printed in August 2009.

Indigo Blue by Catherine Anderson

Having been publishing since 1988, romance writer Catherine Anderson only reached the New York Times bestseller list in the last few years. There is now a massive demand for her early works.  In 2008, Comanche Moon was reissued and made its way onto the NY Times bestseller list and this year Indigo Blue, her 1992 romance novel, is among the most sought-after out-of-print books in America.

The recently deflowered girl; the right thing to say on every dubious occasion by Edward Gorey

In January 2009, a blogger with a LiveJournal account found a copy of this long forgotten Edward Gorey gem and posted scans online.  The post became an Internet sensation with hundreds of thousands of people viewing the post, crashing the LiveJournal blog.  The book, which is an etiquette book parody that instructs young ladies on what to say after losing their virginity, will be republished in November 2009 by Bloomsbury.

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