The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ is available for purchase today. According to preorders, it has already made a huge splash.

It racked up the most preorders since ‘Go Set a Watchman’

By
November 13, 2018 at 10:54 a.m. EST

Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Ron Charles.

Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” is being released today, but judging from preorder sales, it’s already doing well: It sold more preorders than any adult book since Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” was published in 2015, Barnes & Noble announced Monday.

“We’ve already seen tremendous demand for ‘Becoming’ before it has even hit the shelves,” said Liz Harwell, senior director of merchandising at Barnes & Noble. “Our stores across the country are ready for huge demand tomorrow for what will likely be the biggest book of the season during what has been a blockbuster publishing calendar.”

In a candid new memoir, Michelle Obama offers an in-depth look at her life

Thanks to much more media coverage to come, the fervor around “Becoming” is only likely to grow.

Oprah Winfrey announced today she has chosen “Becoming” for her book club. She will broadcast an interview with Obama and run an excerpt of the memoir in O magazine.

“It’s so well-written I can hear her voice; I can hear her expressions; I can feel her emotion. What she allows us to see is how she was able to discover, define and then refine her voice.”

The popular TV talk show host will also help Obama launch her memoir at an appearance in Chicago on Tuesday night at the United Center. Tickets to the event, which run as high as $2,750, sold out quickly. It is the first stop on a 10-city book tour across the country.

And Ellen DeGeneres plans to have Obama on her show on Thursday.

Among the memoir’s most newsworthy content, Obama writes that she blames Donald Trump for the way he continued to question whether her husband was born in the United States long after the “birther” conspiracy had been discredited. “It was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks,” she writes. “What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”

Michelle Obama opened up about her struggle with infertility. Here’s why that matters.

As he usually does in response to critics’ books, President Trump has used his bully pulpit to draw even more attention to “Becoming” by firing back. On Friday, he told reporters outside the White House that publishers always insist authors come up with a few controversial claims. “Well, I’ll give you a little controversy back,” the president said. “I’ll never forgive [President Obama] for what he did to our United States military by not funding it properly. It was depleted. Everything was old and tired, and I came in and I had to fix it.”

Such heavy promotion here and around the country is essential for the publisher. Penguin Random House reportedly paid Michelle and Barack Obama $65 million for a two-book deal.