The famous past First Lady Michelle Obama got a big nomination this week, following in the footsteps of her husband, Barack Obama. She has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Spoken Word Album category for her Becoming audiobook.
This week, Michelle went on social media to commemorate Becoming being out for a year, and to thank her fans and followers for their support.
Barack has won two Emmy’s in the same category as Michelle was nominated. Once, for Dreams from My Father in 2006, and again for The Audacity of Hope in 2008. Michelle has big shoes to fill if she plans on keeping the Emmy’s coming.
Last year’s winner was Jimmy Carter for his book Fath: A Journey for All. He also won in 2016 for A Full Life: Reflections at 90. Betty White won in 2012, Bill Clinton took it home in 2005.
It’s easy to forget just how popular Becoming was, but when it was released in November of 2018 it took bookstores and libraries by storm. Thousands of people put themselves on a waitlist to check the book out from their local library, and bookstores honestly had trouble keeping up with demands.
Within a week, Becoming had sold 1.4 million copies. After just 15 days it was considered the best-selling book of 2018. And at the end of March, the publishing company Penguin Random House said it had sold over 10 million books.
Markus Dohle, the chief executive, has said in the past that Becoming could potentially be the best-selling memoir of all time. “I’m not aware… that we ever sold 10 million units of a memoir.”
In her memoir, Michelle Obama takes a deeply personal look at her life and how she ended up where she did. She starts in her childhood, growing up on the South Side of Chicago and her journey through Princeton and Harvard gaining her degrees.
The book has three parts – Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Becoming More. Each section talks about the most important moments of her life, like her romance with Barack, their journey into the White House, and more.
Michelle shared a video on social media this week talking about how she can’t believe it has been a year since she published Becoming, and how the biggest thing she has pulled from meeting so many people is that “too often we think our stories don’t matter.”
“The most quiet, mundane moments lay bare the most powerful truths in our lives… I want to encourage you all to embrace those tiny moments, and write them down. And maybe… share them with your friends. That’s how we can keep becoming.”
Other nominees this year include The Beastie Boys, John Waters, Eric Alexandrakis, and Sekou Andrews & The String Theory.
