Reading Copy Book Blog

Unlike other online retailers, AbeBooks has a single global database of books that is searchable through all of our five websites. We record the bestselling books for each of our websites but essentially buyers are purchasing from a single list of 110 million listings. So a buyer in the UK can buy a book from a bookshop in the US very easily on AbeBooks. This often happens when there is demand for a book in Britain but the book is simply not available from UK-based retailers.

This is happening right now….with a dog training book. I’m sure North Americans will be familiar with Cesar Millan - aka the dog whisperer - but he isn’t so well known in the UK.

It turns out that British dog lovers are scouring AbeBooks for his latest book, Be The Pack Leader, that has yet to be published in the UK. Be the Pack Leader is the bestselling book on AbeBooks.co.uk in 2008 so far with UK dog owners purchasing the book from our booksellers in the United States. I can imagine all these people in places like Norwich or Coventry trying to find this book while in the background uncontrollable dogs are chewing slippers or destroying furniture.

The book will be published in the UK on March 6 but has been available in the United States since October 2007. Millan is a household name in the US thanks to appearances on Oprah, CNN, Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, and Jay Leno. He also has his own cable TV show called The Dog Whisperer. Clearly news about Millan has spread across the Atlantic, probably via blogs and dog websites.

AbeBooks.co.uk top 10 bestselling books from Jan 1 – February 24 2008
1. Be The Pack Leader by Cesar Millan
2. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll
3. Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
4. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
5. When God Winks at You by Squire Rushnell
6. If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg
7. The Mass Book for Children by Rosemarie Gortler
8. Cesar’s Way by Cesar Millan
9. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore
10. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

I was a bit irked watching Saturday’s hockey game.  No, I’m not referring to the Canucks loss to Dallas, although that was frustrating. I’m referring to the waving of white towels by Dallas fans.  “Towel Power” is a show of fan support for the Vancouver Canucks and to see the Dallas crowd waving white flags seemed almost sacrilegious if not unoriginal. 

Fan traditions go down in sports history.  Take for example the throwing of octopi on the ice by Detroit fans or the tossing of rubber rats by Florida Panther’s fans.  You’ll find these accounts not only on the Internet but in print books such as Hockey Stories On and Off the Ice by Dan Diamond and James Duplacey. The tradition becomes associated with the team and the team’s fans.  Towel Power is a Vancouver Cancucks thing and I think this should have been respected.

I mean I, even in my state of non-hockeyness knew of the history of the Towel incident.  It was 1982 and Canucks’ coach, Roger Neilson, waved a white towel on the end of a hockey stick as  signal of surrender after repeated bad calls by the referees in a Western Conference finals game.  At the next Canucks game in Vancouver, thousands of fans waved white towels in support of Neilson’s gesture. 

This year is the 25th Anniversary of the Towel and at home game 3, towels were handed out to Canucks fans at GM Place.  The Canucks’ official web site states:

“To this day the white towel stands a symbol of the Canucks and their unwavering resolve in the face of stiff odds.  It’s a trademark that’s stood the test of time and reminds us why we are all Canucks.”

So come on Dallas, why don’t you find your own tradition? 

Signed,

The Rookie Hockey Fan

Go Canucks Go in tonight’s Game 7!