“Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs,’ a biography of the late Apple co-founder, is the top-selling book in the country,” Lucas Shaw reports for The Wrap.
“The book sold 379,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week on sale — the biggest weekly amount in this country since the debut of George W. Bush’s ‘Decision Points‘ and Jeff Kinney’s ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth,'” Shaw reports. “That figure already makes it the 18th bestselling book of the year, according to Nielsen’s BookScan.”
Shaw reports, “Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher, moved up its release from Nov. 21 to Oct. 24 after Jobs’ death.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
‘Steve Jobs’ bio breezes to top of best seller lists in debut week – November 2, 2011
Jobs biography draws huge crowds in China; 250,000 copies sold in first day – October 27, 2011
Certainly more deserving.
(aaaand, we’re off!)
How can anyone mentions that man of modest intellectual gifts in the same story as Steve Jobs? The comparison is like comparing a candle with a supernova.
How could anyone in their right mind want to read a page, a chapter, glance at the cover even of book by George W? Morbid curiosity, at best. Steve Jobs was a supernova who changed the world- for the good, and speaking just for myself- changed my own life significantly, for the better, and allowed this right-brained artist find a way into technology. Bill Gates had no shot whatsoever in accomplishing this for me.
How, you ask? Curiosity, maybe but not the morbid kind. If you look honestly at GWB, you will see a man with whom you may have disagreed, but who was more interested in actually leading rather than playing politics and letting the political winds blow him to and fro. Anyone who claims to be truly open-minded should be able to read the book (or allow that others might want to read it for more than morbid curiosity). I read it. It really was interesting. It provided a lot of insight into how he came to the decisions he made.
Let the overtly political comments begin!
I think this book needs to be re-written from a balanced perspective. There is no positive content. Where it the description of the enlightenment he found? Where are the good things he did with and for his family, his friends, others. He loved great design; that is not just as negative. He had great vision for new products on the cutting edge of what was possible. He loved life, creation of technology, art, his family. He was not just a dark, beast driven by a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To put is Jobsonion terms: “This book is shit.”
I agree. Other than talking some broad concept of ‘zen’ it doesn’t seem like he asked Steve any really substantial questions at all.
I didn’t think the book was negative myself.
Im not sure how it could be “re-written” as the subject is dead.
I think it would have been cool if Steve wrote his own book talking about design and his life purely from his perspective but sadly he didn’t.
I think the bio was well done considering the subject
Congrats to Walter Isaacson!
Too bad one of W’s decision points wasn’t demolishing the Clinton administration’s policy that caused the horrific housing crisis and the subsequent economic fallout that we continue to languish under to this day. Likely Bush was averse to being labeled a “racist” by knee-jerk Libs and those who make their profit by keeping their own people slaves to government subsistence living (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, etc.)
In 1994 the Clinton administration declared war on an enemy — the so-called “racist lender” — who officials claimed was to blame for differences in homeownership rate, and launched what would prove the costliest social crusade in U.S. history:
http://news.investors.com/Article/589858/201110310805/Housing-Crisis-Obama-Clinton-Subprime.htm
Too bad one of Shrub’s decision points was to take a respectable Federal surplus and turn it into a god-awful deficit.
You don’t think that might have had something to do with the awful state of the economy?
Hey, I hear the military is hiring!
@ First 2010, Then 2012
You keep stuffing straw in it as if you expect it’ll turn into a real man someday just by the force of your imagination. You really do need to get out of your little box and meet the world.
What’s baffling to me is – How did GWBs book sell at all? Obviously it was ghost written- but the only explanation of those numbers is if Bush bought all the books himself.
Lots of pictures.
++
Dr. Seuss version:
The Dub in the Shrub
No, the difference between the Jobs book and the Bush book is that the majority of the people that bought the Bush book couldn’t read.
That’s why literacy was Laura Bush’s focus as First Lady.
After all, learning starts at home.
This is OK. I just split my ad keyboard for the first time.
Well, good for the both of them.
SJ forever changed the world of electronics, movies, and music.
GW help reshape Africa, India, and the Middle East.
Only the small minded (who, ironically, accuse GW of such a trait) cannot comprehend what either tried to do.
They can argue all they want, but they just don’t get it.
He reshaped Africa, India, and the middle east!? Holy moly. I better tell google maps.
Dur dur dur. Did he use a nuklar bomb!?
All is small minded people can’t figure it out. Be a sport and help us understand. Pleeese, oh enlightened one?
They’re now much flatter shapes.
He reshaped them alright.
The middle east and Afriça are a freakin’ powder keg more so than ever.
Our military is stretched thin.
Our respect and perception of what we stand for has been greatly damaged on the world scene.
Look into what he did to fight AIDS in Africa.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/africa/accomplishments.html
http://www.usindiafriendship.net/viewpoints1/bush1.htm
As far as the Middle East, if you can’t see clear to realize he tried to stem the tide that it had been taking since WWII (and in the long run may still succeed), then you probably believe Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Nixon had nothing to do with trade with China, Johnson nothing to do with civil rights, Ike with the Interstate Highway System, or Truman with scaring the shit out of the Reds by obliterating Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I wish all you right wing tards would go out and buy a brain of your own instead of sharing one amongst you all.
Well thought-out, intellectual rebuttal.
I congradulate you.
how intellectual. You can’t even spell congratulate.
For you to think Bush “reshaped” africa, india, and the middle east, you must be so heavily deluded with idealistic false information it is extremely sad. it is sad for the state of our country, the future of our country, and sings to high heaven of the need for some serious political “reshaping”.
No matter what you say- regardless of your realizing it or not, you are a fool. a dictionary definition of the word.
I know you’ll insult me back- but the fact remains. you are a fool. I can only hope you don’t raise and brainwash children to plague the next generation with nonsense.
Well, if I can’t EVEN spell that, then obviously I can’t do anything right.
Of course, if someone would have taken a different argument, maybe went off on how Jobs was a narcissistic (did I spell it right?), deluded, self-centered egomaniac with no regard for his employees, who took money from Bill Gates to survive, shipped all his manufacturing over to China for slave wages to build his billions in wealth, who never invented ANYTHING, just developed other’s ideas and made them his own, you would probably think to yourself “They just don’t get it. They are making this into a team deal, and all they want to do is ignore reality and look at they way they perceive someone so as to make them feel better about their ‘side’.”
I don’t really care if you can’t understand the achievements of George Bush. I have no problems seeing his flaws, but that’s just me. But he did do a lot of goof for Africa, mores than any other president, and he dod do a lot for trade with India.
Now, the argument for the Middle East is typical. If a President works with whoever is in power of a country to try to change it, then he “aided a dictator”.
If he has a hands-off approach, then he “ignored the plight of the people”.
And if he frees them, then he is nothing but a capitalist hell-bent on emperium.
I don’t need to insult you. You have no argument (other than my dyslexia let me down again. Did I spell it right?).
yes, I went back and counted the misspelled words.
‘goof’ instead of ‘good’ is my favorite.
@towertone:
Perhaps someday, maybe 50 years from now, Bush will get credit for the efforts he made. I honestly believe he meant well.
But following the tradition of 40 years of useless presidents before him, he:
– economically bankrupted the USA with deficit spending, dramatically unbalancing the budget with tax cuts without correspondingly cutting spending
– spread US military power as thin as it could be stretched
– lied to (mislead?) the American people — the US was NOT under imminent threat of WMDs — not even close to commeasurate to the expenses in lives and $ spent in Iraq
– expanded the powers of the executive branch beyond what rational conservatives believe is Constitutionally valid
– took more vacation than any president before or since
– accomplished no substantial domestic policy actions
– signed TARP
– made no attempt to correct any of the much-maligned Fannie/Freddie policies
– made no attempt to “reduce regulation to help business”
– made no attempt to “reduce the size and influence of government”
– made no attempt to stop illegal immigration
– made no attempt to streamline wasteful government programs
– made no attempt to pay down the debt or balance the budget
– increased the overhead cost of public education while routing public funds to “faith-based initiatives”
– made no attempt beyond superficial rhetoric to correct the injustices that his partisan supporters rally about: abortion, corporate regulation, crime prevention, drug trafficking, indecent Hollywood influence, etc.
So in the end, I think it’s fair to say that Bush was no better or worse than Obama or Clinton or Reagan or Carter or Ford or Nixon or Kennedy, etc. All have been steering us down the same path to insolvency.
Mike
I have no problem acknowledging the faults of the Bush administrations. I’ve griped about many of them. I think your cut and paste list is silly in some places and not strong enough in others, but my point about the book sales was that both men did good things worth reading about.
I don’t hold him up as perfect anymore than I put Obama up as Satan. I’m old enough to know better.
It’s just odd to me that some partisans start to foam at the mouth the second you point out anything in truth that they can’t handle.
The Big Question is: Will Steve Jobs’ biography outsell Bill Clinton’s, which sold 2.25 million copies?
Clinton is already pissed off about the revelation that he called Steve Jobs for advice about Monica Lewinsky. And now, Steve Jobs left us another tantalizing clue, mentioned in his sister’s New York Times article a few days ago –
“He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.”
Its possible that the event she was referring to was Bill Clinton’s economic summit in 1992. John Sculley attended as the guest of honor. A few weeks later, Sculley sat next to Hillary at Bill’s first State of the Union address to Congress. A few months later, Sculley was fired. If the 1992 event is what Jobs was referring to, Clinton had been elected, but had not taken office yet. And Simpson’s article would be a message to Clinton, to explain why Jobs considered Clinton to be a bozo.
Despite all that, what Bill Clinton really wants is for the surviving family to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.