BookFinder.com Journal

The Abandoned by Paul Gallico back in print

For the first time since 1991 The Abandoned (aka Jennie) by Paul Gallico is coming back into print in the United States.  The book has been featured on the BookFinder.com Report, for the most sought after out-of-print books in America, 5 times including each of the last 3 years.

The novel is about a young London boy who is hit by a large truck while attempting to save a stray cat.  When he comes to he realizes that he has been transformed into a feline himself, and with the help of a savvy stray, Jennie, learns to navigate the tough city of London on four paws.

The latest publisher of the book is The New York Review of Books, and I got a chance to ask their publishing Editor, Edwin Frank, why he decided to bring the book back into print after so many years.

“When I was a kid I had a friend who loved Gallico, and remembering that I read "The Abandoned" around the time we started the kids book series. I didn't acquire it right then, but it stuck in mind--it's a memorable book--and it kept coming up in surprising ways in conversations with different people, always an interesting indication. So I bought it....”

The New York Review of books edition of The Abandoned is set for an April 9th release, but you can pre-order a copy now.

Why you want to be cooking with Vincent Price

Every year when we release the details of the BookFinder.com Report I am contacted by journalists who want to know “Why are people looking for <insert book title here>?”  The story differs by journalist and from year to year but essentially it boils down to the fact that it’s often tough to figure out why a book, which has seemingly been ignored for years, is suddenly so sought after.

With some titles it’s very easy to spot that they were cited in newly popular book/TV show/movie or were recommended by some form of celebrity (see my previous post about John Yudkin’s book Pure, White and Deadly).  I am usually able to explain these stories pretty quickly, but the books which seem to cause the greatest puzzlement are the ones which have no sexy back story, they have just been recommended again and again on online message boards for hobbyists as great books to help someone do something.  Books like The Modern Gunsmith by James Virgil Howe and the Collector’s Guide to Colt .45 Service Pistols by W. Clawson have been out of print for several years but continue to be a better resource for a niche group of enthusiasts than any new books that are being published.

Another book which falls into the great timeless books category is A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (#13 on the 2012 BookFinder.com Report).  At first glance you might want to throw this title into the vast bin of awful celebrity cookbooks, but the thing that separates Vincent Price from the chaff like Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better by Dom DeLuise is that Price was an honest to goodness gourmet cook.

In the 1970s he had his own Cooking Television show in Britain called Cooking Pricewise; here’s a clip of Vincent making a salmon dish with Wolfgang Puck (although truthfully I don’t believe it was from Cooking Pricewise, rather another television appearance).  I also found some great audio on Vincent Price’s website from an International Cooking Course he narrated.  I’ve been listening to “Exotic Delights of the Far East” while writing this post and dinnertime cannot come soon enough.

Price also authored several other cookbooks including Come Into The Kitchen, A National Treasury of Cookery (5 vols.), and a printed companion to his cooking show also called Cooking Pricewise.

One last interesting fact about Mr. Price was that he was also a noted art collector, and his book Treasury of American Art has been also out-of-print since 1972.

The BookFinder.com Report 2012: Sex, Rage, and Kyle Onstott

Every year around this time the BookFinder.com team puts our heads together, crunches the numbers and cranks out the BookFinder.com Report; a snapshot of the nation's search trends for out-of-print books.  After 10 years of researching the most sought after out-of-print books in America, we’ve learned a few things:

• Sex still sells: 20 years after it was first published, Madonna’s Sex has been the most sought after out-of-print book on BookFinder.com for the past ten years.
• Nora Roberts has very little influence on her fans: Despite Nora Roberts pleading with her fans to avoid Promise Me Tomorrow (a book she herself has described as mediocre), the book remains painfully expensive and highly sought after. 
• Stephen King knows this pain all too well, he decided to take his novel Rage, which is about a school shooting, out-of-print some time ago and he just can't seem to shake the demand.
• Publishers should re-print more Alice Starmore books: Starmore is a rock-star of the knitting world; known for creating some of the world’s most intricate patterns and having written a number of books.  Her book Aran Knitting appeared on every BookFinder.com Report from 2003-2010 until it was re-printed in 2011, only to be replaced by Tudor Roses (#60 in 2011 and #13 in 2012).  Starmore also has several other out-of-print books including In The Hebrides (1995) and Stillwater (1996).

Many of the books we see on the BookFinder.com report persist on the list for years.  Sometimes they were simply limited-run books that remain popular and demand always outstripped supply. Sometimes a popular author decides they want a certain chapter of their writing career to stay firmly in their rearview mirror (see Roberts, Nora).  However, even after 10 years, there are still out-of-print books coming back out of the woodwork.  Here are a couple of this year’s surprises:

• Kyle Onstott’s Mandingo has featured on several past reports. However, this year the author appeared on the 2012 Report three times: Mandingo, DRUM, and The Black Sun; more than any other author.
• Big League Sales-closing Techniques by Les Dane is considered by many to be a salesman’s bible, even though it’s been out-of-print since 1971.  Word-of-mouth recommendations on internet bulletin boards and review sites have pushed the price of this out-of-print guide through the roof.

• Pure, White and Deadly; the Problem of Sugar by John Yudkin was first published in 1972 and outlines research showing that refined sweeteners are closely associated with heart disease and type-two diabetes.  The book was all but forgotten, despite being highly topical, until it was featured in Robert Lustig’s lecture “Sugar: The Bigger Truth” which attained YouTube viral success.   Because of this, Yudkin’s book was re-printed in the UK but remains out-of-print for Americans.

See the 2012 BookFinder.com Report, the hot 100 out-of-print books of the past 12 months.

Marilyn by Norman Mailer to be republished

The two time Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer will be knocked off the BookFidner.com Report next year now that fine press publisher Taschen has paired the text from his biography Marilyn with photographs of the bombshell by Bert Stern.  The publishing house, who is famous for fantastically designed and exorbitantly priced art books such as the Muhammad Ali tribute G.O.A.T., will publish their version of the model's life later this year. You may recognize Mailer's biography "Marilyn" from its many appearances on the BookFinder.com Report, the book was first published in 1974 and was last published in the US in 1987.

In typical Taschen fashion no expense was spared on the final product and a "basic" version (shown below) of Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe by Norman Mailer will set you back about a grand, and the more elaborate "art edition" ends up costing a cool $2,500.

The 100 most sought-after out-of-print books in America

If you are at all familiar with BookFinder.com you probably know all about our annual BookFinder.com Report which tracks the demand of the 100 most sought-after titles which are no longer in print in the United States.  The list differs from year to year as trends change and books get republished (Indie publishers take note, there may be a hidden gem in the list for you.)  This list is no different as number of titles from last year’s report have been republished in the past twelve months including The Sixteenth Round: from Number 1 Contender to #45472 by Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Old Southern Apples by Creighton Lee Calhoun and Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore, leaving room for some new additions.  

In fact Alice Starmore, a superstar in the knitting world, took her own spot on the list. Aran Knitting lived on the BookFinder.com report for years before getting re-published in 2010 and now another one of her works, Tudor Roses, has jumped onto the list to take its place.  Tudor Roses is interesting because it includes a number of sweater designs inspired by the Tudor royals (eg. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) and their over-the-top gold embroidery, velvet, jewels and lace.

Current events also have an impact on the list.  In A Payroll to Meet, David Whitford discusses the incidents surrounding Southern Methodist University's (SMU) receiving the "death penalty" from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); which involves banning the school from competing in a sport for a year or more (two in SMU's case).  This book has been out-of-print since 1989 but scandal in college football has never been more in vogue.  The recent rash of cheating, bribing and recruitment scandals to hit Ohio State, Southern Cal, Auburn, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, LSU, and the Hurricanes in Miami have renewed the interest in the grandfather of college football scandal.  I somehow doubt this book will see reprint but it’s always interesting to well researched books jump back into the spotlight because of current events.

View all 100 books in the 2011 BookFinder.com Report

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

BookFinder.com Report near misses

So now that the BookFinder.com report has been available online for a few weeks, I wanted to mention a few of the interesting books which we were forced to cut from the list.  By this I don't mean all of the thousands of in print books but rather books which nearly made the cut, I mentioned one such book in a post way back when I first started researching this years Report but there were many more.

One example is Dead in Dixie by Charlaine Harris which is technically out-of-print however after a short discussion we decided to leave this one off the list.  You see the book is an omnibus edition of the first three novels in Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series.  All three books are still available and a boxed set  as well as individual editions so we decided that Dead in Dixie failed to qualify.

Perhaps more interesting was The Essential Woodworker by Robert Wearing.  This book was last published in 1998 and is most definitely out-of-print, but was only ever printed in England.  So even though buyers in the US are eagerly looking for this book, and there are no new copies being printed, technically, we could not include in the list as it has never been in print in the United States.

The title which I was the most displeased with having to leave off the 2009 BookFinder.com report was Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: the story of Irena Sendler by Anna Mieszkowska.  This would have been our number one Biography however this book was also never printed in the US. 

The book details the work of Sendler who was a social worker who served in the Polish Underground during the German occupation and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto.  Copies are very hard to track down and at the time of writing this post there are no copies available on BookFinder.com.  If you like you can keep checking back here, but unless we see a reprinting I would not hold my breath

Outside of the great story within what made this book so interesting was that despite the fact it had never been printed in the US it was adapted into a "Hallmark Hall of Fame production", titled The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler and broadcast on CBS April 19, 2009.   With that kind of press and huge search volume, I think a publisher could do well with a North American reprinting.

BookFinder.com Report 7 released

We have released the 2009 edition of the BookFinder.com Report.

The Report tracks the most sought-after out-of-print books in America, breaking down demand for popular out-of-print titles in ten different genre categories.

As usual this edition features a number of books with very interesting stories:

• Cop Without a Badge by Charles Kipps, had a sudden spike in demand after a run in with The Real Housewives of New Jersey
• The Recently Deflowered Girl by Edward Gorey, got a second wind on the back of an internet meme
• Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins, a conspiracy theory propped up by the economic collapse

There are many more so go ahead and read the whole 2009 BookFinder.com Report

Also if any of you are interested I will be on CBC Radio One tomorrow (September 17th) on the All Points West program between 3:30-4:00pm PST.  I will be talking to Jo-Ann Roberts about the BookFinder.com Report.  If you like you can listen online here.

Author's family also seeking the most sought after out of print book in Australia

BookFinder.com’s most searched for out of print books in Australia list is making waves in Hawks Bay, New Zealand. The top book on the list, “The Guide to Fresh Water Angling in Hawke's Bay, by Charles Russell Barham” has been out of print for years and it seems the family of the author is also looking for a copy.

Hawks Bay Today first published BookFinder.com’s list at the beginning of January. When Barham’s widowed wife Maree returned home from her Christmas holiday and read about its online popularity she was floored. In a followup article published yesterday, Maree spoke to the paper, and explains that her family is also searching for a copy of her husband's book.

"I was just blown away, it's been more than 25 years since he died," she said. "When I saw the article in the newspaper I thought, 'what's this?'"

"To know that 40 years after it was published people are looking for it now is amazing. He put his heart and soul into that book."

She said Barham, who went by his middle name, was a great outdoors man and angler. Born in New Plymouth in 1932, he spent most of his adult life in the Bay.

The book's appearance in the news also stirred emotions for the couple's youngest daughter, Cathy Davel, who was 9 when her father died. Mrs Davel, who now lives in Wellington, said she didn't have much to remember him by or much to give her own children to know him by, either.

"I'm a mum now of two children and it would be special to have something to pass on to them."

So if you are a bookseller, or an avid angler, and happen to have a copy of this sought after tome send us a note and we will put you in touch with the family who would be very happy to hear from you. Come on everyone, let's make this a happy ending and find them a copy of this book!

Posted by Scott

Top out-of-print books in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom

Last week BookFinder.com revealed the most searched for out-of-print books from the United States and now, after some additional research time, we present the most searched for out-of-print books for Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

BookFinder.com most sought-after out-of-print books in Australia

1. “Guide to Fresh Water Angling in Hawkes Bay” (1968) by Charles Russell Barham
   Fishing guide for the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island
2. “Souvenirs of the Sunny South : being a collection of Australian horse verse” (1915) by William James Wye
   One of ten works by outback bush poet and horse lover Billy Wye
3. “The Raider Kormoran” (1959) by Theodor Detmers
   An account of the WWII naval battle between the German raider Kormoran and Australian HMAS Sydney, written by the Kormoran’s captain. The location of the Sydney’s wreck was only discovered March of this year, renewing interest in the important naval battle in Australian history. You can read this news article to get some of the back story.
4. “Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia” (1975) by Harold G. Cogger
   Comprehensive guide to the identification of Australia’s rich and varied herpetofauna
5. “Little Dream” (1969) by Cynthia Leonetti
   A children’s picture book about the land where dreams live before they are chosen to inhabit the heads of children for the night.

BookFinder.com most sought-after out-of-print books in Canada

1. “Waiting in the Wings” (1986) by Doreen Tovey
   In this book, the author focuses on her relationship with her husband Charles and adjusting to his passing, which is a departure from her usual focus of the idiosyncrasies of her cats.
2. “The Last Great Frontiersman : the remarkable adventure of Tom Lamb” (1982) by Leland Stowe
   Tom Lamb, described as “a backwoods giant,” lived his life in the northern Manitoban wilderness as a trapper, logger, bush pilot etc.; written by Pulitzer prize winner Leland Stow.
3. “Knitting Lace: A Workshop with Patterns and Projects” (1992) by Susanna Lewis
   An essential textbook when designing lace
4. “Cocaine” (1975) by Marc Olden
   Olden is best known for his crime fiction however he got his start writing non-fiction. His second book, Cocaine, investigates the rising tide of cocaine abuse in America. The contacts he made within law enforcement ranks and the knowledge gained about their world would bring a distinct authenticity to all his future crime novels.
5. “Once a Runner: A Novel” (1978) by John L. Parker, Jr.
   The cult classic distance running novel, coming back into print in April 2009

BookFinder.com most sought-after out-of-print books in the UK

1. “Whispering Wind : adventures in Arnhem Land” (1957) by Syd Kyle-Little
   Whispering Wind is the account of Kyle-Little’s early attempts to found a trading post on the coast of the Arafura Sea in the years immediately following World War II. Kyle-Little’s book was reprinted in Australia in 1993 but has once again fallen out of print.
2. “Walkers Pitch” (1959) by Richard Walker
   British angling author, considered by many to be one of the best fishermen of the twentieth century. Walkers Pitch is a collection of articles from his column in Angling Times.
3. “Sex” (1992) by Madonna
   The pop icon’s book of erotic photos, a perennial favourite
4. “The modern Antiquarian : a pre-millennial odyssey through megalithic Britain” (1998) by Julian Cope
   Book exploring the sites of Britain’s megalithic heritage written by British rock musician Julian Cope
5. “The Silent Scream and poems” (1979) by Larry Winters
   Also includes a biographical introduction by Daphne Brook, who visited the author and convicted murderer, in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, before his death there in 1977. Winters’ story was also the basis for the 1990 film of the same name directed by David Hayman.

I really enjoy comparing these lists and finding out how interests differ from country to country; only two titles ended up on more then one list (Madonna’s Sex and Once a Runner by John L. Parker). Both Canada and Australia love stories about their wilderness adventurers, and Australian out-of-print searchers are mainly looking for Australiana.

But the one trend I find really interesting is that on all four lists, you find instructional manuals for fishing, knitting, woodworking or the like. Publishers produce new instruction manuals every year, but when trying to hone your skills tried and true advice is worth its weight in gold—and I believe it after looking at the price for some of these books.

Is there an out-of-print book you have been in search of for ages ? (Or just trying to find it for a price you can afford?) Tell us in a comment.

Posted by Scott