Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Yeah, no. That’s how real people who actually read, read. I don’t sit on the beach with Faulkner, and neither do you.

Ha! Actually I do. I have a PhD in Literature and I'm a writer by profession, so we differ hugely. I also don't sit on beaches.

Same, lol. MFA in creative writing here (and JD as well). I'm the OP. I was making a list for 2026 of books I don't want to miss, and came across Obama's list and thought I'd post it here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Why?

Because it appears to be entirely "curated" in order to garner approval from naive people, such as yourself.

Lol. I don't think Obama is bothering with "garnering approval" from us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Yeah, no. That’s how real people who actually read, read. I don’t sit on the beach with Faulkner, and neither do you.

Ha! Actually I do. I have a PhD in Literature and I'm a writer by profession, so we differ hugely. I also don't sit on beaches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Yeah, no. That’s how real people who actually read, read. I don’t sit on the beach with Faulkner, and neither do you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Why?

Because it appears to be entirely "curated" in order to garner approval from naive people, such as yourself.

I love Obama’s lists and look forward to reading it every summer and year-end. But the truth is, I never like the books on his list, especially the fiction ones. We have very different tastes!

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads.

There^ fixed it for you.

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

My same first thought. Or even understands why it matters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

How so? It's omnivorism, which is to be expected in any credible arbiter of taste. It doesn't undermine the list, it is necessary.

I agree with you, and I'm kind of mystified by the comment to which you're replying. I usually have an easy book and a hard book going at the same time, and I'm sure many other people do, too.

I really like Obama's lists, and I miss having a literate, intelligent president.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Why?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

How so? It's omnivorism, which is to be expected in any credible arbiter of taste. It doesn't undermine the list, it is necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

yeah, it does achieve that, which kind of also undermines the list entirely.

Anonymous wrote:I miss having a president who reads books.

+1.

Obama’s annual best of lists are always great— I also love his music list. I’m sure he gets help but wow they’re good in highlighting both low and high brow, mass appeal and niche, etc.

I miss having a president who reads books.

Obama has shared his favorites lists for 2025. He tends to have great taste in books.

On the books list: Paper Girl by Beth Macy, Flashlight by Susan Choi, We the People by Jill Lepore, The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy, There is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone, North Sun by Ethan Rutherford, 1929 by Andrew Sorkin, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith, What We Can Know by Ethan McEwan. In the same post he mentioned some books he had already mentioned as favorites this summer, and that list has Mark Twain by Ron Chernow, The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien, King of Ashes by SA Cosby, Rosarita by Anita Desai, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Jones, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst, Who is Government? by Michael Lewis, and The Siren's Call by Chris Hayes.