Barack Obama Posts His Summer Reading Picks For 2019

Aug 15, 2019 by apost team

The mid-August blues are upon as summer comes close to its end. To help us get through it, President Barack Obama recently posted the books he has been reading this season. There’s still time to bring one or all of these to the beach or save them for your fall reading list.

It seems like he’s been busy reading this summer, with a shortlist of ten books from a range of genres. He included novels and short stories, as well as fiction and non-fiction favorites. Plus there’s a bonus of the entire collected works of Toni Morrison’s writings. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author recently passed away, and Obama’s post suggests taking a deep dive into her work.

“To start, you can't go wrong by reading or re-reading the collected works of Toni Morrison. Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else — they're transcendent, all of them,” he writes. “You’ll be glad you read them.”

Other titles on his list range from a recently released Colson Whitehead novel and reaches back ten years for Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall.” It’s a varied collection of readings that contain something for everybody’s list.

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Readers have been salivating for the next Colson Whitehead novel, following his 2016 #1 New York Times bestseller “The Underground Railroad.” His latest book explores the Jim Crow south and two black teens who befriend one another in a Florida reform school.

Chiang wrote “Stories of Your Life and Others,” the basis for the mind-blowing film “Arrival.” This new short story collection is expected to be in the same vein of science fiction of the near future that explores our human nature and our place in the universe.

“Wolf Hall” rewrites history by following Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power under Henry VIII, but with Mantel’s own spin on events. For fans of fictional biographies, this one's for you. “Wolf Hall” is a Man Booker Prize-winning novel that’s the first of a trilogy, which is also good news for those that devour books quickly.

In typical Murakami style, this book of seven stories examines relationships and loneliness written in a sparse and mysterious voice. This time, the stories each follow men who have lost women and the implications of that loss in their lives.

In an original spin on the spy novel, Wilkinson chooses a black FBI intelligence officer as the center of her story. The book reads like a letter to her two young sons and follows her biography from her start in Queens to her intriguing spy experiences during the Cold War.

Carr examines the effects of the Internet on our minds, thoughts, and how we feel, taking a deep dive into one of the most pressing debates of our time. “The Shallows” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was inspired by Carr’s Atlantic piece asking “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

The theme shifts to science in the next of Obama’s picks. “Lab Girl” is a memoir documenting Jahren’s career as a scientist but via the lens of botany. It takes a look at what drives an explorer or scientist in a book that the New York Times called “engrossing.”

The novel follows two characters in the Old West with a bit of a supernatural or magical realism tinge. Nora is a homemaker fending for herself and her young son on the frontier, and Lurie is an outlaw who is convinced of the presence of ghosts in his life. "Inland" follows the Serbian-American author’s 2011 book, “The Tiger’s Wife.”

“How to Read the Air” follows the immigrant experience over two generations. Jonas Woldemariam’s parents come from Ethiopia but he’s experiencing life in the Midwest as a worker in an immigration agency. Mengestu’s book was a 2010 best seller, exploring the ins and outs of one immigrant family’s life.

Another memoir is added to the list—an examination into poverty in America through the eyes of “the help.” Stephanie Land was a single mother who supported her child by working as a maid while navigating the complicated bureaucracy that should be assisting the poor in America.

What do you think about Barack Obama's reading list? Will you be reading any, all, or none of the books? Or are there any that you have read? Recommend your favorites in the comments below.