A confession: I just returned from a lovely two-week vacation, and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t pick up one single book during my time off — not even while spending hours planted in a beach chair with nothing to look at but the Atlantic Ocean and elaborate gold jewelry of my fellow Jersey Shore vacationers. But since a good portion of my job entails burying myself in a book, I figured I deserved the break, right? Right? Well, I feel ever more ashamed of myself after discovering that President Obama packed five books in his suitcase for his Martha Vineyard vacay. And this is a man whose 9-5 involves, you know, trying to save the world and stuff.
But let’s look at his list to make sure our prez is being swayed in the right direction at his local Barnes & Noble. According to deputy press secretary Bill Burton, Obama brought along George Pelecanos’ 2009 novel The Way Home; Tom Friedman’s 2008 environmental manifesto Hot, Flat, and Crowded; Richard Price’s 2008 thriller Lush Life; Kent Haruf’s 1999 novel Plainsong; and David McCullough’s 2001 biography John Adams. I have to say, I’m impressed with Obama’s attention to fiction — presidents like George W. Bush tended to focus on nonfiction titles like James L. Swanson’s Manhunt and David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter. Or so says Karl Rove, who last year wrote in the Wall Street Journal about his yearly reading contest with the then-president — Rove won every time.
Tell me, how does Obama’s vacation reading stack up against your own? Do you applaud his beach-reading choices, or should he have thrown in a Nicholas Sparks novel like seemingly everyone else on my beach?
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What a boring list of books. I’d love to see Obama with a Stephen King book or something a little more fun. George Bush read books?
The depth of the Hate Bush Syndrome is amazing. One of the bloggers here asked if Bush read books! Everyone should read the the WSJ article about his annual book reading contest with Karl Rove. Facts are stubborn things.
I didn’t realize that commenters like you and me had been elevated to the level of blogger. Yes, facts are stubborn things.
That’s a great list of books. Perfect mix of educational and entertaining. I read the John Adams biography recently, and it’s excellent (no surprise, really, since it won a Pulitzer), but it’s also exactly the kind of book I want my president reading: about a man who made the right choices for his nation, even when they were unpopular. And Obama could use a little of Adams’s passion right now.
Two former writers from The Wire, Obama has good taste!
You realize that he’s not REALLY reading these books, right? He’s just appearing to so he can seen as an intellectual–not to say that he isn’t, but this whole thing is for show.
So, Stephen, do you also think that George W. Bush didn’t read the 40 books he claimed to have read in 2008? (And the 95 he claimed to have read in 2006?) Or is Karl Rove a liar when he published Bush’s book reading totals in the Wall Street Journal?
Of course Rove is a liar. It’s all coming out now on the US attorney firings (all for political reasons–Rove was in the thick of it. John Macain lost the 2000 election because of the horrible lies and innuendo Rove perpetrated in South Carolina. Bush may have had a natural political ability, but his intellectualism was a total fabrication. I am impressed, however with Roves ability to keep a straight face when he lies. That takes talent.
Obama actually is an intellectual! He is a constitutional law scholar!!!! I think that he actually will try to read all of these books.
interesting choice of books! a good variety. i might eventually check out “john adams”. i wonder if obama has read another book by david mcculough called “1776″. he might also like “mayflower: a story of courage, community, and war”. would have liked to have seen a classic thrown in there like “1984″ or something like that, but i’m glad he likes reading! when you’re on vacation, it’s nice to relax and sit and read a good book. i wonder what types of books michelle likes and their girls like!
I have to agree with Stephen. I don’t doubt that our president is very smart and actually an intellectual (hard to argue with his degree and all), but seeing that his Press Secretary had to announce which books he would be reading on his vacation seems a bit suspicious to me. And can he really absorb that many books in that amount of time? I mean not just read, but absorb and reflect about everything that he is reading.
Love “Plainsong”, just an exquisite book. And anything Richard Price writes is worth reading.
Who cares about a president’s reading choices, I’m more concerned with how he’s going fix this sham of a health care bill than his latest book choice. Thanks for being shameless EW, stick to celebrities and stop kissing Obama’s feet.
he should have brought along a college textbook; economics 101