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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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BookFinder Announces the Most Sought After Books of the Year - By Michael Stillman Marilyn still fascinates us today. By Michael Stillman Bookfinder.com recently released its fifth annual report of the most sought after old books on its book searching website. BookFinder's Top 10 reports are fascinating as the leading titles combine high interest with difficulty to find. The most sought after books on the listing sites tend to be common and recent publications, ones which people seek online for a cheaper price. However, when searchers go to BookFinder, which enables them to search many listing sites at once, the chances are good that they are attempting to locate a book that is hard to find. The desired, but hard to locate book, dominates BookFinder's Top 10 lists. Not surprisingly, the hard to obtain titles often are ones that have a story behind them to explain their rarity. BookFinder's founder, Anirvan Chatterjee, noted, "Many of this year’s standout titles have fascinating stories, involving factors like suppression or controversy." Others simply have issues of demand outstripping supply. Some of these books show up on the list year after year, while others will experience 15 minutes of fame, and then again be relegated to the back shelves of disinterest. For now, here are what people who seek old books online were looking for during the past year. Only one category has a perennial favorite, number one on the list every year since BookFinder began tallying its reports. In the category of Arts and Music, number 1 is again Sex by Madonna. Unlike many books on this list, Sex is hardly rare, 1.5 million copies having been sold within days of its release in 1992. However, the strange erotica for which the singer-actress posed seems not to have lost any of its artistic or whatever appeal. And, Madonna has not aged a day since 1992 on the pages of this book. This year, the winner of runner-up honors in Arts and Music goes to Bob Dylan, whose recent Drawn Blank consists of paintings created from sketches he had made on tour years earlier. His art, like his music, is far subtler than that of Madonna. The Madonna of another generation tops the most sought after works in the field of Biography: Marilyn: A Biography. This 1973 book by Norman Mailer includes provocative photos of the great Marilyn Monroe, perhaps not as outrageous as those of Madonna, but as controversial in their day as was the Material Girl's photographs in hers. Mailer also posited a bizarre political murder plot for a death the authorities attributed to a suicidal overdose of pills. This list also includes autobiographies of the dearest of mommies, Joan Crawford, and wrongly convicted boxer Rubin Carter, who spent many years in prison for murder. However, Rin Tin Tin was unable to compose an autobiography, so James W. English filled in to write The Rin Tin Tin Story on his behalf. In Children's Books, Robb White's The Lion's Paw completes its third year on top. Two titles from popular illustrator Tasha Tudor, who died just a few months ago, make their first appearance on this list.
BookFinder Announces the Most Sought After Books of the Year - By Michael Stillman There is another repeat atop the Top 10 for Crafts, Hobbies and How-To. This is Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods. Three hundred pound men attempting to crush each others' skulls is an odd craft or hobby, but enormously popular in America, especially when viewed on TV from the safety of your living room. Runners-up include two titles about knitting, and the ever popular Woodwork Joints by Charles Hayward. Further down the list we find more works on knitting, backpacking, magic, and returning to the Top 10 after a year's absence, horror actor Vincent Price and his wife Mary's A Treasury of Great Recipes. Where better to add a touch of arsenic? There are no changes atop the list for Fiction and Literature this year. Once again, John L. Parker's tome on running, Once A Runner, is number 1, again followed by Nora Roberts' Promise Me Tomorrow. New at number 10 is the Autobiography of Howard Hughes, one of those rare autobiographies not written by its subject. The whole thing was a fraud perpetrated by Clifford Irving. In History, last year's number 1 was the story of a short-lived Manhattan Restaurant - Flash in the Pan, by David Blum (now number 4). This year it is the story of a New Orleans hotel famed for fine cuisine: French Quarter Royalty: The Tumultuous Life and Times of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, by food writer John DeMers. Runner-up is Tom Lea's 50-year-old book about South Texas' enormous King Ranch, larger than the state of Rhode Island. Four other categories of books are listed, with the top sought books ranging from Carl Sagan's musings on space to Lindsey Williams' conspiracy theories of The Energy Non-Crisis, that claims there is 200 years worth of oil and gas readily available in Alaska. For a complete look at these interesting lists, go to http://report.bookfinder.com/2008.

BookFinder Announces the Most Sought After Books of the Year

- By Michael Stillman

Marilyn still fascinates us today.

By Michael Stillman

Bookfinder.com recently released its fifth annual report of the most sought after old books on its book searching website. BookFinder's Top 10 reports are fascinating as the leading titles combine high interest with difficulty to find. The most sought after books on the listing sites tend to be common and recent publications, ones which people seek online for a cheaper price. However, when searchers go to BookFinder, which enables them to search many listing sites at once, the chances are good that they are attempting to locate a book that is hard to find. The desired, but hard to locate book, dominates BookFinder's Top 10 lists.

Not surprisingly, the hard to obtain titles often are ones that have a story behind them to explain their rarity. BookFinder's founder, Anirvan Chatterjee, noted, "Many of this year’s standout titles have fascinating stories, involving factors like suppression or controversy." Others simply have issues of demand outstripping supply. Some of these books show up on the list year after year, while others will experience 15 minutes of fame, and then again be relegated to the back shelves of disinterest. For now, here are what people who seek old books online were looking for during the past year.

Only one category has a perennial favorite, number one on the list every year since BookFinder began tallying its reports. In the category of Arts and Music, number 1 is again Sex by Madonna. Unlike many books on this list, Sex is hardly rare, 1.5 million copies having been sold within days of its release in 1992. However, the strange erotica for which the singer-actress posed seems not to have lost any of its artistic or whatever appeal. And, Madonna has not aged a day since 1992 on the pages of this book. This year, the winner of runner-up honors in Arts and Music goes to Bob Dylan, whose recent Drawn Blank consists of paintings created from sketches he had made on tour years earlier. His art, like his music, is far subtler than that of Madonna.

The Madonna of another generation tops the most sought after works in the field of Biography: Marilyn: A Biography. This 1973 book by Norman Mailer includes provocative photos of the great Marilyn Monroe, perhaps not as outrageous as those of Madonna, but as controversial in their day as was the Material Girl's photographs in hers. Mailer also posited a bizarre political murder plot for a death the authorities attributed to a suicidal overdose of pills. This list also includes autobiographies of the dearest of mommies, Joan Crawford, and wrongly convicted boxer Rubin Carter, who spent many years in prison for murder. However, Rin Tin Tin was unable to compose an autobiography, so James W. English filled in to write The Rin Tin Tin Story on his behalf.

In Children's Books, Robb White's The Lion's Paw completes its third year on top. Two titles from popular illustrator Tasha Tudor, who died just a few months ago, make their first appearance on this list.

BookFinder Announces the Most Sought After Books of the Year

- By Michael Stillman

There is another repeat atop the Top 10 for Crafts, Hobbies and How-To. This is Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods. Three hundred pound men attempting to crush each others' skulls is an odd craft or hobby, but enormously popular in America, especially when viewed on TV from the safety of your living room. Runners-up include two titles about knitting, and the ever popular Woodwork Joints by Charles Hayward. Further down the list we find more works on knitting, backpacking, magic, and returning to the Top 10 after a year's absence, horror actor Vincent Price and his wife Mary's A Treasury of Great Recipes. Where better to add a touch of arsenic?

There are no changes atop the list for Fiction and Literature this year. Once again, John L. Parker's tome on running, Once A Runner, is number 1, again followed by Nora Roberts' Promise Me Tomorrow. New at number 10 is the Autobiography of Howard Hughes, one of those rare autobiographies not written by its subject. The whole thing was a fraud perpetrated by Clifford Irving.

In History, last year's number 1 was the story of a short-lived Manhattan Restaurant - Flash in the Pan, by David Blum (now number 4). This year it is the story of a New Orleans hotel famed for fine cuisine: French Quarter Royalty: The Tumultuous Life and Times of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, by food writer John DeMers. Runner-up is Tom Lea's 50-year-old book about South Texas' enormous King Ranch, larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Four other categories of books are listed, with the top sought books ranging from Carl Sagan's musings on space to Lindsey Williams' conspiracy theories of The Energy Non-Crisis, that claims there is 200 years worth of oil and gas readily available in Alaska. For a complete look at these interesting lists, go to http://report.bookfinder.com/2008.