Slightly more than two months after his death, and with less than two months of sales, “Steve Jobs,” the first official biography of the tech visionary, has risen to the top of Amazon.com’s Bestsellers List for the entire year of 2011. Written by Walter Isaacson, the book was released on Oct. 24, 19 days after Jobs’ death on Oct. 5.
The book is the result of more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years, as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, colleagues — and competitors.
In second place is Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, but that book was released in Nov. of 2010, and thus has been on sale the entire year.
Rounding out the top five are StrengthsFinder 2.0, The Hunger Games, and Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Naturally, all these placements could change over the next few weeks.
A second book released shortly after Jobs’ death, “I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words,” has also done well. It is No. 385 overall for 2011.
The book is already on the way to becoming a movie, which we’d expect to become a hit, if book sales translate to movie ticket sales. Sony Pictures has acquired the movie rights to the biography, and reports are that Aaron Sorkin of “The Social Network” is “strongly considering” taking on screenplay duties. Some reports have actors George Clooney and Noah Wyle in the running to portray Steve Jobs.