Phil Angelides, best-selling author?
Well, yes, in a manner of speaking.
"The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report" – the book version of the study produced by the federal commission led by the Sacramento politician and developer – has become a modest if unlikely best-seller.
While it's no threat to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" mysteries, the book has climbed up several charts since its release in late January.
The report, which documents the causes of the 2008 crash in the financial markets, is No. 10 on the New York Times' list of best-selling nonfiction paperbacks, for instance. It's also made lists compiled by the Washington Post and USA Today.
"I'm pleasantly surprised," Angelides, a former California state treasurer, said Tuesday. "It shows there's still tremendous hunger in this country to find out what happened." He's coming to Sacramento Thursday for a book signing.
The Angelides book isn't likely to overtake the all-time best-seller among government-inquiry books. "The 9/11 Commission Report," released in 2004, sold more than 1 million copies.
The publisher of the Angelides report, PublicAffairs, printed 25,000 copies initially. It has since run off another 5,000 copies.
"It is doing very, very well," said PublicAffairs spokeswoman Jaime Leifer. Profits from the book will go toward defraying the Angelides commission's $9.8 million budget, she said.
Angelides chaired the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was appointed by Congress. The book credits the full commission, not Angelides or any other individual, as the author.
The book isn't an obvious best-seller. It's 545 pages long and has to compete with a free version of the report, available for download on the commission's website.
The release was muddled somewhat when Republicans on the commission, stealing a bit of Angelides' thunder, put out two dissenting reports summarizing their own conclusions about the crisis. Both dissents are published at the back end of the book.
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