Barack Obama has yet again continued his ritual of sharing his favorite books, films, and music for the year.
Starting off, the former U.S. president took to his social media platforms on Saturday to reveal the books he enjoyed reading and his reason behind sharing the list to his followers.
“This has become a fun little tradition for me, and I hope it is for you, too. Because while each of us has plenty that keeps us busy – work and family life, social and volunteer commitments – outlets like literature and art can enhance our day-to-day experiences,” he shared on his Instagram.
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“They’re the fabric that helps make up a life—the album that lifts us up after a long day, the dog-eared paperback we grab off the shelf to give to a friend, the movie that makes us think and feel in a new way, works that simply help us escape for a bit. To start, here are the books that made the last year a little brighter for me. Most of them came out in 2019, but a few were older ones that were new to me this year. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.”
Take a look at the list below and be sure to read the ones you haven’t. As usual, all his recommendations are worth a read!
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
- The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple
- Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
- How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
- Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
- Lot: Stories by Bryan Washington
- Normal People by Sally Rooney
- The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
- The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
- Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Solitary by Albert Woodfox
- The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
- Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
- We Live in Water: Stories by Jess Walter
For the sports fans:
- A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney’s Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule by Jim Rooney
- The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala
During the summer, Obama also shared the books he had been reading and gave a brief synopsis of them.
His first recommendation was all the collected works of the first black woman to receive a Nobel Prize, Toni Morrison.
“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. You’ll be glad you read them,” he said.
