Vice President Harris' memoir soars to top of bestseller lists

Senator Kamala Harris spoke with San Francisco Mayor London Breed at the Curran in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, January 12, 2019. (Yalonda M James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Sales of Vice President Kamala Harris' 2019 memoir have skyrocketed in recent days, following her ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket to take on former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. 

"The Truths We Hold: An American Journey" currently ranks at No. 1 among female biographies on Amazon. It's No. 2 among all biographies, behind Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance's 2016 personal memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." 

"This book is not meant to be a policy platform, much less a 50-point plan," Harris wrote in the preface. 

"Instead, it is a collection of ideas and viewpoints and stories, from my life and from the lives of the many people I've met along the way."

Harris was born in Oakland, California, in October 1964, to immigrant parents. 

"My father, Donald Harris, was born in Jamaica in 1938," Harris wrote. "He was a brilliant student who immigrated to the United States after being admitted to the University of California at Berkeley."

Her dad is a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University today.

"My mother’s life began thousands of miles to the east, in southern India," wrote Harris. "Shyamala Gopalan was the oldest of four children … Like my father, she was a gifted student."

The vice president’s mother also studied at Berkeley, and became a doctor of endocrinology and breast cancer researcher. She died in 2009. 

In the book, Harris describes how her parents shaped her politics while participating in the civil rights movement. 

"My parents often brought me in a stroller with them to civil rights marches … Social justice was a central part of our discussions," she wrote. 

Her father was part of a network of leftist activist friends in Berkeley and San Francisco political circles. Among them: Lateefah Simon, a Bay Area social justice warrior and 2024 congressional candidate.

"Lateefah was a genius," Harris wrote. "In 2003, she became the youngest woman to ever win the prestigious MacArthur ‘Genius’ award."

Simon today sits on the Bay Area Rapid Transport board of directors and has enjoyed leadership positions with far-left groups such as the Rosenberg Foundation and the Akonadi Foundation.