Anyone thinking of investing in this book should only invest a few minutes by thinking how it would feel in the same situation. Yeah, imagine that you would be king by all means, and if you were king, would you not have done any stupid things during adolescence? And would you want to be accountable for things that your friends have done, just because your friends happen to know you? And would you like someone wrote a biography about you, but you got so much comment on the content?
I completely agree, Karisma. The only way to discourage these types of books are to not purchase them. Unfortunately, for every one person who chooses not to buy it there are probably several who do.
It's undeniably American. Just bury themselves properly in someone else's life and then throw it up for public display. Actually it does not matter what you will find, if it is good or bad is not what this is about. That's the thing, to crush another's privacy for what? Prove something? I actually get a little disgusted. 
What sources has the newspapers in other countries? They may be called "Le Figaro" or whatever! Well, the foreign press reviews about the Swedish press and the articles you can read here. No one has ever presented the source to the various allegations. In a democratic country with a functioning judiciary is a fundamental requirement that you should have witnesses willing to testify before you shed a verdict. It is unfortunate that this form of American squalor press found us up to Scandinavia.
Call me hypersensitive, but I found myself offended reading the portions of your post which I have highlighted in boldface. Since the links covering any of the reports about this book have been to the various Swedish journalistic agencies, as well as the Daily Mail in the UK, I find it insulting to characterize this as an "American" phenomenon. Gossip existed before America and, as an American, I think your point was clearly made and would have been as effectively received if the criticism was of this type of journalism, rather than a sweeping generalization of Americans. A review of the UK's Daily Mail shows story after story of this type. And wasn't it a German publication that was successfully sued by the Swedish Royal Family for articles written about them? And isn't the author of this book Swedish? How many articles have been written in Swedish media about Sofia Helqvist? In America, we used to call this "yellow journalism". But it exists, and has existed, in all countries with freedom of the press.
We have had the habit of letting the private be private. And when we present something that we call "the biography "we have at least become accustomed to the source again research is published and reviewed.
Reported sales figures for this book would indicate that habits can be broken. Apparently a great many Swedish people are clamoring for this information. In fact, if private was to be private, there would not be many threads in this forum and most of us, including the two of us, would probably not be participating in this forum.
I'm pretty sure that your comments weren't intended to be hurtful to Americans, but to borrow your scenario...before making a sweeping generalization about another gender, race, culture, or - in this case - country, imagine that another person described the Swedish as blonde, drug-using, sexually-promiscuous, emotionless ice queens with large breasts.
All of these descriptions exist somewhere in the Swedish population, but none of them describes the Swedish people as a group. I understand that your perception of Americans may be as you stated, but I encourage you to educate yourself about the many different people and cultures in my country just I have done regarding yours and many others.
Well said, Rascal! I reacted the same way you did. I fail to see why this has anything to do with America. The Swedish King has an affair, a Swedish writer writes a book about it, a Swedish company publishes the book, Swedes buy the book, and there are articles about it, primarily in Swedish papers. And the whole thing is "undeniably American"???
Atleast not yet
