Obama's win boosts book sales

Both were in the Top 25 on Amazon.com's best-seller list early Wednesday, soon after the Democrat defeated Republican John McCain to become the country's first black president-elect.

"Dreams from My Father," a memoir released in the 1990s when few had heard of Obama, and "Audacity of Hope," a reflection on politics that came out in 2006 and helped to solidify his national following, have far outsold any of the anti-Obama books that came out last summer.

The most notable and best-selling attack against Obama, Jerome Corsi's "Obama Nation," was ranked No. 466 on Amazon.com early Wednesday. Corsi was co-author of the highly effective "Unfit for Command," which was at the center of the so-called "Swift Boat" attacks of 2004 presidential contender John Kerry's military record that helped lead to the Democrat's defeat.

Conservatives had hoped that Corsi's current book would prove equally influential in the 2008 election. "The Obama Nation" was released by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster run by Republican strategist Mary Matalin.

"The Swift Boat book appeared to have a devastating effect on the polls in 2004," said Adrian Zackheim, head of the conservative Sentinel imprint at Penguin Group (USA). "It was my impression that the books about the candidates didn't have much of an effect on a lot of voters this time. There seems to have been a lot of different forces at play."

One sobering fact on the Amazon.com list: The No. 1 book at the time of Obama's victory was "I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt," by Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera. Polls have shown repeatedly that Americans' No. 1 concern is the teetering economy.

Photo: AP