Secrets and Lies: New BookFinder.com Out-of-Print ‘Bestseller List’ Reveals Heavy Demand for Rare and Suppressed Titles

    BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 25 /EMWNews/ -- Readers around the country

are trying to find a variety of rare and suppressed out-of-print books,

according to the newly-released BookFinder.com Report.



    The BookFinder.com Report tracks the most sought-after out-of-print

titles in America. The newly released fifth annual edition is based on

aggregate reader demand between July 2007 and June 2008, online at

http://report.bookfinder.com/



    "We're seeing interest in out-of-print titles hit critical mass," says

BookFinder.com founder Anirvan Chatterjee. "Many of this year's standout

titles have fascinating stories, involving factors like suppression or

controversy."



    Shortly after the already limited publication, all unsold copies of the

controversial "Smith County Justice" (1986) were returned to the publisher

and burned, never reappearing in print. The book is a nonfiction account of

alleged widespread police perjury, entrapment, and murder during the 1970s

and 1980s in Smith County, Texas. Concerned residents have helped keep the

book's allegations in circulation by issuing an unauthorized ebook

distributed online via sites like Wikileaks -- leading to huge demand for

the original book.



    Clifford Irving came close to pulling off one of the most ambitious

literary hoaxes in the 20th century with his fake "The Autobiography of

Howard Hughes." The reclusive Howard Hughes surfaced in 1972 shortly before

publication, to repudiate the book; Irving went to prison for fraud. The

work first saw the light of day in 1999, with a publication of a small

private edition; the book has since remained out of print in the U.S.



    "Raven: the Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People" (1983)

by Tim Reiterman is increasingly in demand as the 30th anniversary of the

Jonestown massacre approaches in November. Reiterman, a then-San Francisco

Examiner journalist, was in Jonestown with a Congressional delegation at

the time of the massacre.



    Notable and less clandestine, "The Jerusalem Bible" (1966) illustrated

by surrealist Salvador Dali is also in high demand. This all-new Catholic

Bible was produced directly from original sources; the team of translators

included J.R.R. Tolkien. While there were many editions printed, only one

included art by Dali, 32 images from the artist's "Biblia Sacra" series.



    Since 1997, BookFinder.com has been one of the best ways to find and

buy new, used, rare, and out-of-print books online. The comparison shopping

engine has over 150 million books available for sale from a network of

150,000 booksellers in over 50 countries, making it the world's largest

searchable book inventory, online or off.