Books

'Fire & Fury' Is Sold Out, But You Can Listen To Chapter One Of The Audiobook Right Here

Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images

I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news. Here's the bad new first: Michael Wolff's Trump book is sold out pretty much everywhere, but — and this is the good news — you can listen to the first chapter of Fire and Fury here, courtesy of Audible. Print copies of Wolff's news-making book won't be available for at least another two weeks, so hopefully this excerpt will tide you over until you can get your hands on the book everyone is talking about. And of course, the full version of the audiobook is available on Audible right now, so you don't have to wait if you can't get your hands on a full copy.

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House came out four days early last week, on Jan. 5, almost immediately after Donald Trump's lawyer sent cease-and-desist letters calling the book a work of "actual malice" to Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt & Co. Wolff famously tweeted out his thanks to Trump for stirring up controversy over Fire and Fury after Henry Holt & Co. decided to push the book out early.

That Trump's lawyer would claim actual malice shows that the 45th POTUS may wish to pursue a libel suit against Wolff. Actual malice is difficult to prove in court, however, and Trump's attempt to prevent the book from being published is an act of prior restraint, which the Supreme Court of the U.S. has long held to be a violation of the First Amendment.

Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, narrated by author and Holter Graham, $21 or free with 30-day trial, Audible

The first chapter of Fire and Fury, which you can listen to in the full version audiobook available on Audible or by clicking the link above, covers the hours immediately before and after the 2016 general election. According to Wolff, no one in the Trump camp, not even the candidate himself, expected to defeat Hillary Clinton. Kellyanne Conway had every intention of securing a post-campaign position as a conservative cable news anchor, and Trump planned to leverage his defeat at the hands of "Crooked Hillary" into a Trump-branded TV network. When the election results were in, Wolff says, Melania Trump cried over the fact that her life would not be returning to normal.

Michael Wolff's Trump book is sold out on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as in bricks-and-mortar stores across the nation. Henry Holt & Co. is printing and shipping more volumes to fulfill purchase orders, but those could take two weeks or longer to hit stores. Thankfully, e-books and digital audiobooks don't sell out, so you can still read Fire and Fury with the rest of the country, even if you haven't bought your copy yet.