Steve Jobs biography is top-selling book in the U.S.

By Brandon Griggs, CNN November 3, 2011 -- Updated 1435 GMT (2235 HKT) | Filed under: Innovations

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson has been a huge seller since it hit stores October 24.

(CNN) -- In its first week on sale, Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sold 379,000 copies in the U.S., making it by far the top-selling book in the country.

The book, titled simply "Steve Jobs," also achieved the biggest week of sales for any book in the U.S. for almost a year.

That's according to data from Nielsen's BookScan service, as reported by TheBookseller.com.

Published by Simon & Schuster on October 24, the book outsold the next bestselling book of the week, John Grisham's "The Litigators," by more than three to one. After only six days of sales, the Jobs biography is already the 18th-bestselling book of the year, according to BookScan's figures.

Simon & Schuster's decision to move up the book's publication by a month after Jobs' death October 5 appears to have paid off. Fueled by intense interest in the late tech visionary's life and career, the biography arrived on a wave of publicity, including appearances by Isaacson on CBS's "60 Minutes" and CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight."

The 656-page book traces Jobs' 55 years of life, from his hippie youth and co-founding of Apple in his parents' Silicon Valley garage to his ouster from the company, triumphant return 11 years later and remarkable successes in the past decade with the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

The book has already produced plenty of headlines, including how Jobs regretted waiting too long after his cancer diagnosis to get surgery that might have saved him.

It retails for $35, although many sellers are pricing it closer to $20.