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The former first lady of the United States Laura Bush's memoir, Spoken From the Heart (Scribner), last week became the second fastest-selling book of the year in the US, racking up 147,003 sales in its first part-week on sale according to Nielsen BookScan US data.
But the much-discussed but lukewarm-reviewed publication has to settle for second position in this week's US bestseller list behind the fastest-selling book of the year, Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family (Ace). Harris' 10th Sookie Stackhouse vampire thriller sold a massive 199,732 copies during the seven days to ninth March.
There has understandably been a huge amount of publicity surrounding the publication of the memoirs, while Laura Bush's own publicity tour included stops on Oprah and the Today show.
Having obtained an advance copy of the memoirs late last month, the New York Times published details about some of the book's more sensational elements, including: details about a suspected poison plot against her husband at the G8 Summit in 2007; the mystery surround a car accident she caused in 1963 that resulted in the death of a friend, and her defence of her husband George Bush's often controversial political decisions.
Despite the high sales, reviews have been mixed. Newsweek, in its regular "We Read it (So You Don't Have to)" column, suggested that about "half of Spoken From the Heart could have (and should have) been cut", stating that some of the memoir's best "gems" are "sandwiched between pages and pages of boring, uninteresting facts".
In comparison to the first week sales of 147,003 copies for Spoken From the Heart, Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue (Harper) sold 467,604 copies in its first week, while Edward Kennedy's True Compass (Twelve) sold 168,459 copies.