Hunter Biden's addiction memoir climbs the charts as prosecutors use it as a weapon in court
“Beautiful Things” is doing beautiful business.
While prosecutors are using Hunter Biden’s searing 2021 memoir of addiction and recovery as a rich seam of evidence in his federal gun trial, the book has shot up the Amazon sales charts.
“Beautiful Things” was released in April 2021 to strong reviews and reached #4 on the New York Times best seller list. Mega-author Stephen King called it a “harrowing and compulsively readable memoir,” while USA TODAY wrote that Biden’s journey was “deeply relatable for others living with addiction.”
After reaching #5 on Amazon’s bestseller list and #14 on USA TODAY’s list that month, “Beautiful Things” began a gentle but seemingly inexorable tumble down the sales rankings.
More: The president's son in his own words: Hunter Biden's candor becomes prosecutor's weapon
Now, as prosecutors in a Delaware courthouse play selections from the “Beautiful Things” audiobook – narrated by the president’s son himself – to jurors, interest in the memoir has surged.
According to the industry publication Publisher’s Marketplace, “Beautiful Things” has jumped from 338,000 in the Amazon rankings on Sunday, to 12,900 on Monday, the trial’s first day, to the 4,200 range by late Wednesday afternoon.
It isn't clear what that kind of leap means in terms of sales. According to publishing industry tracker BookScan, 28,086 hardcover and softcover copies of "Beautiful Things" have been sold in the U.S. as of May 25, and more than 11,000 e-books were sold through February.
More: Hunter Biden's lawyer in gun trial also represented Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner
Biden’s publisher, the Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, didn’t immediately comment on the book’s apparent reversal of fortune.
Hunter Biden is being tried on three felony gun counts after he checked “No” on a federal form asking if he was using or addicted to illegal drugs when buying a .38 Special revolver in October 2018. He also faces federal tax charges in California.
In addition to mining Biden’s memoir, phone backups and his infamous laptop for evidence, prosecutors on Wednesday called his former wife, Kathleen Buhle, and a former girlfriend to testify about his drug use.
Buhle published a memoir of her own, “If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing,” in 2022. That book is currently at 8,347 in the Amazon sales ranking.
More: Hunter Biden trial: Why his gun case hinges on one fateful day when he wasn't using drugs
Another memoir is on its way.
Lunden Roberts, mother of the fourth of Biden’s five children, has a purported tell-all, “Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden,” set for publication on August 20. That's during the Democratic National Convention, where President Joe Biden will officially accept his party's nomination in the 2024 election.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hunter Biden's book "Beautiful Things" is climbing Amazon charts again
