Sales of the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale have soared since Donald Trump was elected US president again.
Books about feminism, tyranny, far-right politics and dystopian themes have since taken over the charts, with some titles seeing up to a 30,000 per cent increase in sales.
After a highly charged election campaign, the Republican candidate defeated Democrat rival Kamala Harris to return to the White House for a second term as president.
Women reported an increase in misogynistic abuse online following the victory announcement and women’s rights groups expressed concern after reproductive rights were curtailed during his previous reign.
The issues had been a prominent theme throughout the election campaign, after Trump is said to have celebrated the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, a ruling which had conferred to women the right to terminate a pregnancy.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which paints a picture of a society in which women are reared for the sole purpose of bearing children, is currently number three on the US bestsellers list after climbing more than 400 places, according to The Guardian.
Atwood had shared a cartoon in the runup to the election, which shows women entering the voting booth as Handmaid’s dressed in red robes and emerging on the other side as individual women dressed in their personal clothing. After the win was announced, she wrote: “Despair is not an option. It helps no one.”
Other titles seeing a drastic increase in sales include On Democracy by Timothy Snyder, which rose hundreds of places in 24 hours to the number eight spot.
George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984, is currently sitting at number 16. The book follows two people who fall in love while living in a totalitarian regime.
Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick saw a 30,000 per cent boost in sales as it currently sits in the Movers and Shakers charts, which ranks books with the biggest increase in interest over a one day period.
Men Explain Things to Me, a collection of feminist essays by Rebecca Solnit, climbed 40,000 places in the same time.
After Trump saw huge wins among minority communities including the Latino and Hispanic vote, Defectors by Paola Ramos – a book about the appeal of right-wing sentiments among the Latino community – also rose thousands of places.
Meanwhile, books by the newly-elected US vice president JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, and Melania by the new First Lady Melania Trump, remain in the top 10.
