Michelle Obama to speak at the O2 Arena as Becoming tops charts

Michelle Obama is returning to the UK in April 2019, her publisher has revealed, following the former First Lady's sold-out event at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this month.

Obama will appear at London’s O2 Arena, which has a capacity of 20,000, on Sunday 14th April for a second visit to the UK to promote her memoir Becoming that this week pipped David Walliams' The Ice Monster (HarperCollins) to the UK Official Top 50 number one spot. Tickets go on sale via an O2 presale at 12.30pm tomorrow, Wednesday 12th December, via a Live Nation presale at 1.00pm on Thursday 13th December and on general sale at 1.00pm on Friday 14th December.

Tickets to Obama's first live event in the UK to discuss Becoming with novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, held last Monday 3rd December, sold out within minutes, leaving tens of thousands of fans disappointed with many taking to Twitter to say they wished a larger venue than the Royal Festival Hall had been booked.

Michelle Obama and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in conversation at the Royal Festival Hall

As well as the event in London, Obama has announced events in five other cities acrosss Europe – Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Paris, and Amsterdam – as well as 15 further events across the US and Canada.

Obama said: “I couldn’t be more excited to visit even more cities across the country and around the world. I’ve been so humbled by the response to the tour thus far and the overwhelming interest we’ve received from so many communities we weren’t able to visit this year. That’s why I’m thrilled that we’re able to expand our conversations to these new settings and wider audiences. I can’t wait to continue the discussions that have been so meaningful for me and, I hope, for so many others."

According to Viking, Becoming is the fastest selling non-fiction title of the year in the UK, with over 375,000 copies sold since publication. Selling more than three million copies in the US and Canada, it also claims the book has sold more copies than any other book published in the US in 2018.

This week through Nielsen, as reported by The Bookseller, Becoming has sold 95,447 copies for £1.36m, making it the most valuable week for any one title in 2018. The book currently has a 4.31/5 star rating on book reviews aggregation site Books in the Media; read all the reviews here.