Reading Between the Lines?

Borrowed with permission from my colleague Linda L. Richards at January Magazine:

Will the battle for the U.S. presidency be won in a bookstore? Probably not, but in an era when the media likes to make much of the goofiest little things, expect to be hearing more about this: U.S. presidential contender Senator Barack Obama’s books The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father have recently been outselling Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Living History by a fair margin.

According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 per cent of industry sales, Living History averaged around 1,000 sales a week in December and early January, compared with more than 7,000 a week for Audacity of Hope and more than 2,000 for Dreams From My Father.

You’ll find the piece from which Richards draws her excerpt here.