Michelle Obama‘s BECOMING was the second-best-selling book in the UK in its opening week, selling 64,732 hardcovers as tracked by Nielsen Bookscan UK. (That’s a little better than Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury in its best week in the UK, when it sold almost 60,000 hardcovers.)
You may recall that it was initially expected that former president Barack Obama‘s book might be published first, though that notion did not last long. Indeed he told the audience at the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday in Chicago, “Go buy her book right now. This is causing some strain in our marriage. The fact that she is finished and I am not.”
“It’s just brutal,” he said of his writing process, in a stage conversation with Dave Eggers. He added with a smile, “I’m just sitting there. I type two words, delete them.”
It’s also worth acknowledging Mrs. Obama’s collaborator on her book, NYT Magazine contributing writer Sara Corbett (who is also married to author Michael Paterniti). “When I first met Sara Corbett a little over a year ago, all I knew about her was that she was highly respected by my editor and knew very little about politics,” Obama writers in her acknowledgments. “Today I would trust her with my life not just because she has an amazing and curious mind but because she is a fundamentally kind and generous human being.” Corbett was the co-author/collaborator with Amanda Lindhout of the 2013 book A HOUSE IN THE SKY (and long ago the author of the YA book Venus to the Hoop).
Separately, ceo of Bertelsmann’s big RTL Group for 13 years Anke Schäferkordt and the company “jointly decided, with mutual consent and under the best terms, not to renew her contract” at the end of this year. She will leave the Bertelsmann Executive Board at the same time.
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