Titles by Goldwater and Felt among most-sought-after out-of-print books

It may be premature to call America a nation of political-history buffs, but many readers have been on the hunt for long out-of-print books by the likes of Lynne Cheney, John Kerry, Barry Goldwater and Watergate's now-revealed "Deep Throat," W. Mark Felt.

The online literary search engine Bookfinder.com named books from all four authors in a list of the most-sought-after out-of-print titles on its Web site for summer 2004 through to summer 2005.

Most of the interest in Goldwater's 1960 book, "The Conscience of a Conservative"; Kerry's 1971 anti-Vietnam War book, "The New Soldier"; Felt's 1979 memoir, "The FBI Pyramid from the Inside"; and Cheney's 1981 frontier-era lesbian romance, "Sisters," stemmed from last year's presidential race and the recent revelations about Felt's role in helping Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon, Bookfinder CEO Anirvan Chatterjee said.

"We look at these lists as an indication of what's going on in society, the zeitgeist," he said.

But in some cases, only used copies of rare titles are available, and they may cost hundreds of dollars in good condition. What else are readers curious about? Chatterjee said he was surprised to see so many searches for out-of-print books about sewing.

Tyrone Beason: 206-464-2251 or tbeason@seattletimes.com