David Cameron's memoir fails to top Tony Blair’s in first week sales

For the Record, the former PM’s account of his time in office sold close to 21,000 copies in its first week, behind Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, which topped 100,000

Almost 21,000 people rushed out to buy a copy of David Cameron’s memoir in its first week on sale, placing it second on the latest book charts to Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and, historically, behind Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair for the title of fastest-selling political memoir by a former prime minister.

Published on last Tuesday, For the Record had sold 20,792 copies by Saturday, according to figures just released by official book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan. When Blair’s A Journey was published in 2010 – amid cancellation of launch events over protests from anti-war campaigners – it sold 92,060 copies in its first four days on sale. At the time, this made it the fastest-selling autobiography since Nielsen began to track book sales in 1998.

Related: For the Record: David Cameron's memoir is honest but still wrong

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