RUNAWAY SUMMER HIT

From the seaside to the mountains, the hottest book in the state last week was the 567-page "9/11 Commission Report" on the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. "We can't keep it in the store," says Jason Spina, sales manager for Borders Books & Music in Paramus, which sold out more than 100 copies and was awaiting another 80 to 100 books. "Everybody's interested," Spina says.

At the Atlantic book store on Beach Avenue in Cape May, manager Kate Gibbons says two 20-book orders sold out overnight. "We could use 40 copies a day," Gibbons says. That's despite the fact that "we're a beach town, and this is hardly beach reading."

At Bookends in Ridgewood, co-owner Walter Boyer planned to use a basement press to print fresh copies of the report after a 40-copy shipment virtually walked out the door. "Like everyone else, we totally underestimated the demand," Boyer says.

Bookends claims to be the first U.S. bookseller to use the desk-sized, in-store press, which was developed by InstaBook, a Florida concern. The report is in the public domain and can be downloaded by logging on to the commission Website at www.9-11commission.gov.

Torrid Garden State sales reflected a nationwide hunger for the report, which instantly soared to No. 1 at both Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com, the online unit of Barnes & Noble. "It's flying off shelves," says Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Carolyn Brown. Publisher W.W. Norton first printed 600,000 copies of the report and was running off another 200,000 to fill back orders last week.

What accounts for this demand for a footnote-studded government document? "It appears right in the middle of a frenzied moment," says Cliff Zukin, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. Besides addressing qualms about terrorism, the report taps into "underlying public concern that the future is at stake and this presidential election is an extremely consequential one," says Zukin. "We see more interest in this election in the summer of 2004 than we did in the last one in October 2000."

Former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission, has become a big winner as a result of its work. "I doubt that he could have anticipated the stature he's gained," says James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. "He's one of the few people in the country who's now viewed as nonpartisan-as someone who thinks about what's best for the country as a whole."