Former President Barack Obama is breaking records with his 768-page-long memoir titled, “A Promised Land.”
In the first 24 hours of the memoir’s release, it sold nearly 890,000 copies in the U.S. and Canada, according to a report published by the Associated Press.
“We are thrilled with the first day sales,” David Drake, publisher of Crown Publishing Group, said. “They reflect the widespread excitement that readers have for President Obama’s highly anticipated and extraordinarily written book.”
Michelle Obama also penned her own memoir titled, “Becoming.”
On its first day, “Becoming” sold 725,000 copies in North America.
According to AP, it has sold more than 10 million copies since 2018.
Michelle Obama won a Grammy for the audiobook of her memoir, as IJR previously reported.
President-elect Joe Biden took to Twitter to congratulate her.
“Congrats [Michelle Obama] on winning a Grammy for telling your story with strength — and with grace. Jill and I are so thrilled for you. Just beat Barack to an EGOT, will ya?” Biden wrote.
The former president’s memoir details his time at the White House and what came next.
He wrote about former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former President George W. Bush, Biden, and President Donald Trump, as IJR previously reported.
Barack Obama addressed the president’s attacks on him.
“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” he wrote.
The former president added, “Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety.”
Barack Obama explained Trump’s opinions of him “had migrated from the fringe of GOP politics to the center — an emotional, almost visceral, reaction to my presidency, distinct from any differences in policy or ideology.”