Former Benonian’s book a top seller in the UK
The book is ranked fourth in the top 100 on the Amazon.co.uk list of biographies and memoirs of journalists.
A former Benoni boy is shooting up the Amazon bestseller lists with his “hilarious” and “poignant” book about growing up in the town in the 1970s.
The bestseller has overtaken books by big names, such as English broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson and former England footballer Ian Wright.
Gavin Weir’s memoir, Mr One Hundred Billion, was ranked fourth in the top 100 on the Amazon.co.uk list of biographies and memoirs of journalists, with readers in Britain, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere rating it a five-star read and describing it as “unputdownable”, “brilliant” and “piercingly honest”.
Weir (60), who started as a reporter for the Germiston City News in 1982 and worked for the Springs Advertiser for four years in the 1980s, moved to England in 1999 and is now a senior sub-editor for The Times in London.
He said the success of Mr One Hundred Billion had taken him by surprise.
“I expected to sell maybe a few dozen copies at best and mainly to friends and family, but the response has been overwhelming.
“I think I underestimated just how big an appetite there is for any book that reminds us of who we were when we were young, when we were filled with hopes, dreams and ambitions.
“The daily grind of life takes a huge toll on all of us. I’ve tried to lighten the load for a day by dropping in on my 10-year-old self and remembering what a weird kid he was.”
The blurb warns, intriguingly, that the book is “the truth and nothing but the truth, but it’s not the whole truth” because, Weir admits, he doesn’t want to be sued by a few of the kids he grew up with who, like him, “have somehow emerged as responsible, law-abiding adults and who would rather the world didn’t find out about their troubled beginnings”.
He added: “I’ve used first names only, most of the time. No surnames. Safer for all concerned, I think.”
Mr One Hundred Billion is available from the Amazon bookstore in ebook form.
It can be read on a Kindle device, a home computer, iPad or tablet, or even a cellphone simply by downloading the free Kindle app.
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