The former president has varied tastes — but they’re not wholly unpredictable. We’ve got our money on these sci-fi, history and fiction titles.
Only with Barack Obama did the president’s summer reading list turn into a bona fide cultural event. And in some ways, he still remains the tastemaker in chief, his picks avidly anticipated by the publishing industry.
“Making that list has the kind of importance that is on par, at this point, with winning a National Book Award, in terms of the visibility that you get,” said Kristen McLean, the primary industry analyst at Circana, which runs the data service BookScan. McLean added, “I do think that he was one of the most connected, savvy culture participants that we’ve had in the White House.”Judging by past summers, Obama will share his 2023 reads any day now.
Our methodology is loose, because his listmaking is: Obama skipped some years entirely and double-dipped during others, issuing an additional year-end list in December. He doesn’t limit himself to a fixed number of titles, though his lists have recently grown longer. He favors new books, picking them up within about three years of publication — but not always.
But based on the patterns that have emerged over the past decade-plus, we can make some educated guesses. Here are roughly a dozen contenders.Especially in recent years, Obama’s list has often included brand new voices: He spotlighted the first outings of Eric Nguyen, Jessamine Chan, Charmaine Wilkerson and C Pam Zhang, among others — plus, he’s never met an immigrant family saga he didn’t like.
Desmond’s “Evicted” was one of Obama’s favorite books of 2017, so odds seem good that this follow-up landed on the former president’s bedside table, too. The argument — that poverty endures in the United States not just because of big societal shifts, but the choices of those who exploit the poor — seems like it would resonate with what we know of Obama’s worldview: It accounts for both structural unfairness and individual agency.
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