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Prince Harry’s highly anticipated memoir is finally here and it’s already a hit in the sales department. After debuting Tuesday (Jan. 10), Spare shot to No. 1 on Amazon’s bestsellers list and set “record-breaking, day-one sales” at Barnes & Noble.
With 2 million copies printed in the U.S. alone, Spare is expected to be one of the biggest books of 2023. According to Barnes & Noble, customer demand compares to the first day of Michelle Obama’s bestselling 2018 memoir Belonging.
“It is thrilling as a bookseller to have a massive release like this to start our new year,” Shannon DeVito, director of books, Barnes & Noble said in a press release to Billboard. “We are experiencing the most extraordinary first-day sales, buoyed by the explosive headlines and litany of press. The leaking of extracts has only heightened the frenzy and is drawing customers into our bookstores in amazing numbers. The appeal of Spare is vast, piquing the interest of both fans and followers of the Sussexes, as well as their critics, and anyone interested in the British Royal Family.”
Per the description, Spare chronicles Prince Harry’s “journey with raw, unflinching honesty” while sharing “insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.”
The father of two gets candid about grieving the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and battling “post-traumatic stress and crippling panic attacks” as a result. He also chronicles falling in love with Meghan Markle and later being “preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies.”
“Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country,” reads the book description. “Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother.”
Detailing his experience as one of the most famous royals in the world, Prince Harry goes on to open up about his beloved late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II , and the now strained relationship with his father and brother, Prince William and father King Charles III .
The 38-year-old royal promoted his new book in recent interviews with 60 Minutes (streaming on Paramount+) and Good Morning America (streaming on Hulu).
Spare is available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook and e-book editions at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, Books-A-Million in addition to Audible, Google Play Store and Apple Books.
