Released yesterday, ex-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press, $35.00) is making headlines for its scathing indictment of the Bush administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. But almost as juicy–at least for the few of us with a taste for very minor book industry scandals–is when, precisely, those headlines were printed. Penguin supplied advance copies with the stipulation that stories be withheld until the book’s official release on Monday, September 17. The Wall Street Journal sidestepped that little rule, though, by purchasing a copy at an eager New York-area retailer and posting an account of Greenspan’s much-anticipated comments on its Web site Friday night. Once the embargo was broken, other news outlets were free to go to press with their own stories, albeit with the knowledge they’d been scooped.

Last year, the New York Times had the distinction of beating Bob Woodward to the punch with a premature feature on his State of Denial, courtesy of a gun-jumping bookseller. In fact, embargo breaking is something of a NYT specialty: They did the same thing with Woodward’s previous book. And with the Carly Fiorina memoir–despite a deal between Newsweek and Penguin for exclusive rights to the story. (And then the NYT did the unforgivable, publishing Harry Potter spoilers.)

Although Penguin says it forces any retailers it finds selling books early to remove them from shelves, procuring high-profile books before release date doesn’t seem too difficult. No word on whether the nameless booksellers sell embargoed material out of ignorance or desperation for sales of any kind.

Greenspan’s 544-page memoir/economic commentary is currently Amazon.com’s top seller.

+Greenspan on 60 Minutes
+Greenspan at BEA
+NYT review