Ever try to listen to your own voice for more than a few seconds? Rough, right? How about for 29 hours?
President Barack Obama recorded 29 hours of audiobook for his new memoir, A Promised Land. The 768-page tome, published on Nov. 17, is only the first of two volumes about his eight years in the Oval Office. We do not have long commutes anymore, so when is anyone ever going to listen to all this?
Obama also wrote a memoir in 1995, so his penned proclivity is being called out.
“Two autobiographies before you’re 60?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said. “It’s safe to say he doesn’t have a self-esteem problem.”
Appearing on Carlson’s show, comedian Adam Carolla said, “Obama is a bigger narcissist than Trump … I was only able to listen to the first 17 hours on the toilet this morning.”
The book already has sold more than 1 million copies – 894,000 on the first day – setting a record for a book by a U.S. president. But the read is not for everybody, even in his own family. Obama said his daughters, Malia and Sasha, are not interested in reading it.
“You are never a prophet in your own land,” Obama joked on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show.”
“Their attitude is, ‘We’ve got better things to do than read your boring rants and raves.’”
Independent bookstores are grateful for the business from a book that is already their 2020 bestseller, but social distancing is an issue. Stores have had to redesign to accommodate customer spacing and to create areas for shipping because of increased online ordering during the pandemic.
That does not leave much room for the boxes of books they need to meet the high demand for Obama’s book. But if the moving and unpacking takes a while, they can always turn on his audiobook for a few shifts.
Add comment