BookFinder.com Report 2010: 100 most sought after out-of-print books

The eighth edition of the BookFinder.com report is now available for your reading enjoyment.

We changed up this year’s format ever so slightly, and have provided a list of the top 100 most sought after out-of-print books, regardless of category.   Among some of the usual suspects (Madonna’s Sex is, not surprisingly, once again on the top of the heap) we have some very interesting newcomers, including:

• The Secret of Instantaneous Healing by Harry Douglas Smith (a guide to mental healing)
• Basic Building Data by Don Graf (A compendium of tables and facts for anyone with an interest in selecting the right materials, location, and layout for a construction project).
• William Burges and the High Victorian Dream by J. Mordaunt Crook (a biography on the great Victorian era architect William Burges)

It also brought a smile to my face seeing Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley show up in the list. This, of course, is the book that anyone who lived in the UK in the 1980s would remember from the now classic Yellow Pages advert which featured an man traipsing around London's used book shops looking for an old book, only finding success with the telephone directory. 

Neither the book, nor the author, existed at the time of the when Yellow Pages created this commercial.  So why, you may ask, is this book found in the BookFinder.com report? 

The beauty of this whole scenario is that in 1991 a spoof memoir by the fictional Mr. Hartley was published due to the popularity of the ad, and now the spoof is the out-of-print book which is sought after.  It kind of reminds me of the time paradox in Terminator, only with used books instead of cyborgs.

See the whole list in the 2010 BookFinder.com Report

Comments

[Andrew Wetzel (@CircleReader)]

Aww...that ad is so cute! Thanks for closing the circle on that story.

[susie]

Looking for Best Ideas from A to Z (FST 503) Frog Street Press.

[David Jackson, Beware of the Leopard Books]

I have been a secondhand bookseller for over twenty years and the only book on the list I get asked for regularly is the Devil's guard.
The majority of the books and authors are unheard of and this leads me to wonder if this reflects the differences in demand between the UK and the USA or more likely the difference between the demand for out of print books and books in print in secondhand bookshops.

Would be interesting to hear from US secondhand bookdealers if there is a big difference between the out of print books requested and those still in print OR whether those searching for books on the net are a completely different crowd from those who ask for books in actual shops

[bud]

Does anyone know the value of a first edition book called narrative of a mission of enquiry to the jews sent out by the church of scotland in 1839 printed by J. Greig, Lawnmarket. Edinburgh please email me with info. budwiser99@rogers.com