Sales of Boris Johnson’s memoir, Unleashed, have slumped by 62% in its second week since publication.

The heavily marketed tome, promoted in a prolonged media round by the former prime minister in recent weeks, only just managed to cling on to the No 1 spot in the official UK Top 50 this week, selling 133 more copies than Tim Spector’s The Food for Life, according to Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market data.

Unleashed covers Johnson’s time as London mayor, foreign secretary and in Downing Street, including his accounts of the Covid pandemic, Brexit and the 2019 general election.

It was the bestselling release of the week when it hit shelves, recording 42,528 sales, outselling David Cameron’s 2019 memoir For the Record, which sold 20,792 copies in the week it was published. Liz Truss only sold 2,228 copies of her memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, in its first week on sale earlier this year.

In a review for the Guardian, Martin Kettle said of Johnson’s book: “It is full of angry self-righteousness … Though Johnson likes to parade the outward signs of his intellect, there is not a philosophical sentence in the entire book.”

News of a lull in Johnson’s sales come after a YouGov poll found many Britons did not believe the claims he made in Unleashed.

Only a quarter of respondents thought Johnson’s claim that Buckingham Palace had asked him to try to convince Prince Harry not to leave the UK with his family was probably or definitely true; 46% thought it was probably or definitely false and 29% were unsure.

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Just 31% thought his claim that Brexit meant the UK was able to get Covid vaccines faster than EU countries was probably or definitely true.

Boris Johnson’s memoir, Unleashed, sold 42,528 copies in its opening week after being published on 10 October, making it the bestselling book of last week.

This means Johnson has outsold David Cameron’s 2019 memoir, For the Record, which sold 20,792 copies in the week it was published, though Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey, sold 92,060 copies in its opening week. Liz Truss shifted just 2,228 copies of her memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, in its first week on sale earlier this year.

Margaret Thatcher’s 1993 memoir, The Downing Street Years, is estimated to have sold 120,000 copies in its first week on sale, though the book was published before publishing sales data company Nielsen BookScan’s records began.

“We’re delighted to see Boris Johnson’s Unleashed as the nation’s overall No 1 this week,” said a spokesperson from Johnson’s publisher, HarperCollins. “Boris is a writer to the core and Unleashed is a compulsively readable and unputdownable account of these recent turbulent years.”

Unleashed covers Johnson’s time as mayor of London, foreign secretary and prime minister, taking in Covid, Brexit and the 2019 election, among other major political events. “Johnson’s book gives his version of the big episodes,” wrote Martin Kettle in a Guardian review. “But it dodges the larger issues they raise.”

“It is full of angry self-righteousness,” he added. “Though Johnson likes to parade the outward signs of his intellect, there is not a philosophical sentence in the entire book.”

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The book came ahead of Tim Spector’s The Food for Life Cookbook, which sold 29,732 copies, and Ian Rankin’s Midnight and Blue, which sold 19,359. Richard Osman was fourth in the chart, having sold 17,522 copies of We Solve Murders, published last month.

Images have emerged online of copies of the memoir in shops being positioned next to or covered by titles such as The Idiot by Elif Batuman, Entitlement by Rumaan Alam, Surrounded by Liars and Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson, The Psychology of Stupidity by Jean-François Marmion, How They Broke Britain by James O’Brien, The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey and A Short History of the World in 50 Lies by Natasha Tidd.

Other social media photos show the book placed next to toilet paper and cat litter in supermarkets and put in the fiction section of WH Smiths.

A parody of the memoir, Unhinged by Ian Martin, which was also published on Thursday, is being displayed prominently. Billed as the “perfect parody Christmas gift book for that selfish egomaniac in your life”, the book teaches readers to “trivialise everything with buffoonery” and “rebuild reality using various self-centred techniques”, according to publisher Bloomsbury.

A YouGov poll published today found that many Britons do not believe claims made in Unleashed. Only a quarter of respondents thought Johnson’s claim that Buckingham Palace asked him to try and convince Prince Harry not to leave the UK with his family was probably or definitely true, with 46% thinking it probably or definitely false, and 29% unsure. Just 31% thought his claim that Brexit meant the UK was able to get Covid vaccines faster than EU countries was probably or definitely true.

Unleashed by Boris Johnson (HarperCollins Publishers, £30). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Planning military incursions into the Netherlands, likening himself to ancient Greeks and comparing Keir Starmer to castrated bulls: the serialisation of Boris Johnson’s forthcoming memoir kicked off in characteristic fashion this weekend.

Excerpts from Unleashed, which will be released on 10 October, have been published in the Daily Mail on Friday and Saturday, and the Mail on Sunday is due to reveal more.

Here are six key takeaways:

1. His battle with Covid

After testing positive for coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, it was “Athenian history” that came to the former prime minister’s mind.

“Pericles died of the plague,” Johnson recalls telling Michael Gove, referring to the plague of Athens in 430BC that killed up to one-third of the population. Upon hearing this, Johnson says his Cabinet Office minister’s “spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought, like the penguin in Wallace and Gromit”.

As the death toll across the UK neared 1,000, Johnson describes his declining health as he was “banjaxed” by the virus, which would eventually land him in intensive care at St Thomas’ hospital in April 2020. He reminisces about going from “bullish” and “rubicund” to having a face “the colour of mayonnaise” within days.

Even his dog, Dilyn, seemed to succumb to Covid, Johnson writes, while he recovered at Chequers, the 16th-century mansion in the Chiltern hills. “After a few hundred yards he would lie there all floppy, tongue lolling,” he says of his jack russell cross.

2. The Dutch canal raid

Johnson also remembers how, at the height of the pandemic in March 2021, he considered invading the Netherlands to seize vaccines.

He says he discussed taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was at the time the subject of a cross-Channel row over exports, with senior military officials. They plotted to “send one team on a commercial flight to Amsterdam, while another team would use the cover of darkness to cross the Channel in rigid inflatable boats and navigate up the canals,” he writes.

“I have to warn you, PM … that it will not be possible to do this undetected,” Johnson recalls being told by Lt Gen Doug Chalmers, the then deputy chief of the defence staff (military strategy and operational). “Well, PM,” Chalmers tells Johnson, “if we are detected we will have to explain why we are invading a longstanding Nato ally.”

Johnson writes: “I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.”

3. Theresa May and Penny Mordaunt

Johnson speaks of his fond feelings for his predecessor, Theresa May, and looks back on his encounters with the former equalities minister Penny Mordaunt.

He describes how he would enjoy May’s “schoolmarmy self-righteousness” and how she would “roll her eyes” when he spoke. But it was her “long and pointy black” nostrils, says Johnson, that he fixated on most: “Like a Gerald Scarfe cartoon, and the way she would twist her nose, as if to show them off.”

As for Mordaunt, he draws parallels with her views on transgender rights, writing: “Was she still a Remainer, wrapped in Brexiteer clothes, or had she surgically altered her beliefs? Was she some kind of cross-dresser – and could she switch back? I started to worry.”

4. His Partygate regrets

In 2022, Johnson became the first prime minister to receive a criminal penalty while in office for a surprise get-together for Johnson’s birthday. Downing street previously admitted that staff “gathered briefly” in the cabinet room.

In his memoir, he denies eating cake at the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity”.

He writes: “I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday … I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake.”

A later investigation into Partygate was led by the former senior civil servant Sue Gray. Johnson remarks on how she is now Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and at the time was his“number one political foe”. He states he still believes all the “events were in accordance with the rules”.

In a shortlist of his “catastrophic mistakes” in the handling of the political scandal, Johnson lists among them, regret over “a ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt led by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray” and not realising “my old amigo Dom Cummings [was] behind it all”.

Gray’s investigation found that neither Johnson nor Sunak were aware of the event in advance.

5. Never mind the bullock, here’s Keir Starmer

Johnson does not pull his punches when describing Keir Starmer, saying that his “irritable face” during a Commons debate was “like a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum”.

The line refers to a debate in June 2020, when the two leaders clashed at prime minister’s questions over the delay to the full reopening of schools. Johnson says Starmer was unable to say schools were safe as it would “go against his masters in the teaching unions”.

“A great ox has stood on his tongue,” he told the speaker.

6. His plea to Prince Harry

Johnson describes how he tried to stop “Megxit” – Prince Harry’s departure from the UK when he stepped back from being a working royal and moved to California via Vancouver with his wife, Meghan.

He collared the prince for a “manly pep talk” during a UK-Africa investment summit in January 2020. The meeting lasted 20 minutes, but Johnson concedes it was futile, as Harry left for Canada the next day.

Johnson recalls: “There was a ridiculous business when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless.”