NBC
- Michael Wolff’s controversial new book on the Trump administration, “Fire and Fury,” is so far flying off shelves.
- I saw some of the pandemonium firsthand at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble.
After hearing the news that Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” would go on sale a few days early in light of the non-stop news coverage, I headed to my local bookstore to grab a copy.
I (perhaps naively) thought I’d be able to walk into the store and find it on display. But after a few minutes of wandering around a Barnes & Noble on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, I noticed a pack of people waiting at the customer service desk asking about the book. I was informed that I could get on a waitlist for a Tuesday delivery — because the 60 books the store was due to receive Friday were already preemptively sold out.
The buzz around Wolff’s book has been enormous — it has dominated the news cycle this week, the White House has publicly denounced it, and President Donald Trump’s lawyer threatened legal action to block the book’s release.
It seems I wasn’t the only one having trouble getting a physical copy of the book.
A bookstore in Washington, DC, opened at midnight to sell copies and reportedly sold out in 20 minutes after hordes of people showed up. You can buy an ebook version of “Fire and Fury” on Amazon, but the website says it will take two to four weeks to ship a hard copy.
The book has received critical attention after a series of excerpts were released this week, including disparaging quotes from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and other eyebrow-raising details about the Trump administration.
And the credibility of its author has also been called into question. Wolff is a controversial figure in New York media, and some political reporters have this week highlighted his tendency to embellish.
But in any case, it seems that people (in New York and DC at least) are clamoring to get their hands on a copy, and it’s certain that Wolff will become even more famous (or infamous) as cable news continues to dissect his latest offering.
A woman behind me in line at Barnes & Noble commented, “I can’t even remember the name of the book, but I remember the name of the author.”
