Blair publishes ‘frank, open’ memoirs
Tony Blair’s A Journey is published today, promising to give readers behind-the-curtain insights into major world events from the death of Princess Diana to the September 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq.
British booksellers are reporting heavy interest in the book, for which the former British prime minister was paid an estimated £4.6 million (€5.5m). He is donating the proceeds to a charity for injured troops.
Billed by publisher Random House as a “frank, open” account of life at the top, A Journey is being published in a dozen countries, alongside an e-book and an audio version read by Blair himself. This week it’s in the top 10 on Amazon’s British bestseller list — though it’s only 4,000 on the US site.
“Initial sales will be huge,” said Jonathan Ruppin of Foyles book store chain. “But whether those sales are sustained will depend on how frank and open it is.”
Blair — who is scheduled to be in Washington on publication day, attending Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in his role as an international Middle East envoy — said he “set out to write a book which describes the human as much as the political dimensions of life as prime minister”.
“Though a memoir is by its very nature retrospective, the book is also an attempt to inform and shape current and future thinking, as much as an account of the past,” Blair said in comments released in advance of publication.
That account is unlikely to resolve the conflicting views and emotions Blair evokes.
For many Americans, he remains a well-regarded ally who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in the fight against international terrorism. He is scheduled to receive the 2010 Liberty Medal from former president Bill Clinton in Philadelphia on September 13.
At home in Britain he is a divisive figure. Swept to power in 1997 on a wave of popular enthusiasm, Blair left office a decade later reviled by many for taking Britain into the US-led Iraq war, and viewed as a liability by much of his own Labour Party.
“He began as a leader who was a friend of everyone, and he finished as a friend of almost no one in Britain,” said Blair biographer Anthony Seldon.
Anti-war groups say they will picket Blair’s book signings in Dublin on Saturday and in London on September 8.
