Booksellers up and down the country have reported “vigorous” discussions with customers over Tony Blair’s A Journey (Hutchinson), which has had the strongest opening week sale of a memoir since Nielsen BookScan records began in 1998.
As The Bookseller reported earlier this week, the book sold 92,060 copies in the UK in its first four days, smashing the previous record for a political memoir of 24,000 copies held by Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years (also Hutchinson).
Booksellers said high sales of the memoir did not mean Blair was popular. Patrick Neale of Jaffé &Neale, prime minister David Cameron’s local bookshop, said: “We’re selling a lot of it. People want to get a grip on what really happened.” But he added there had been “bile and vitriol” about the former prime minister from customers.
"I have started every conversation with 'While at work, I am not allowed to express a political opinion'," he said.
Vivian Archer of Newham Books in East London said: "What’s interesting is that people spend ages telling me why they are buying it, and why they are not buying it. It has provoked enormous discussion—he’s possibly not the most popular person."
But Archer said that though discussions were vigorous and informed "with a huge amount of feeling", she did not feel threatened as she had done during the furore over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
Sarah Donaldson at Red Lion Books in Colchester said the shop had been "pleasantly surprised" by sales but that customers had been reshelving the book to make a political point. "It's turned up in fantasy, crime fiction and humour. People have been playing games," she said.
Independents said the widespread discounting had cost them sales. Stephen Poulter of Books@Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire said: "The supermarkets and Amazon have fatally undermined it. I can’t even buy it from the wholesalers for the price I can get it on Amazon." Neale said that the £6.99 Kindle price would devalue the product.
With acres of newsprint still devoted to the book, threatened protests from the Stop the War coalition led to the cancellation of Blair’s signing at Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, and a planned party at Tate Modern (both to be held on 8th September).
Director of English PEN, Jonathan Heawood, expressed concern over the scrapped Waterstone’s signing. "It’s a shame when any author has to cancel a public book signing on the grounds of concern for public safety. If this is what has happened in this case, it begs the question of what our commitment is to free speech in this country," he said.
While The Evening Standard report:
Buyers (and sellers) queue for hours to get hold of signed Tony Blair book
Miranda Bryant on The Evening Standard - 09.09.10
Fans of the former Prime Minister started queuing at Waterstone's in Piccadilly from midnight to get a copy of the book — the fastest-selling autobiography since records began.
All 500 copies of A Journey went in just over one hour after doors opened at 9am. The book has sold 92,060 copies in its first four days.
Photo = Jeremy Selwyn.
Full piece at The Evening Standard.
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