Barack Obama's Summer Reading List 2019
Former President Barack Obama shared his Summer Reading List. "The list covers both new releases and older works from authors such as Téa Obreht, Colson Whitehead, Ted Chiang, Haruki Murakami, Dinaw Mengestu and Hilary Mantel. Mr. Obama started with an invitation to read works by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, who died last week at the age of 88. Mr. Obama’s interest in reading has been well documented. The former New York Times chief book critic Michiko Kakutani reported at the end of Mr. Obama’s presidency that he would read for about an hour on most nights. Mr. Obama said that reading fiction left him “better able to imagine what’s going on in the lives of people throughout my presidency.” —Arit John, New York Times,
Maid
Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
By Stephanie Land & Barbara Ehrenreich
Narrated by Stephanie Land / 8 hours 34 minutes
Maid
“This was an amazing book about her life and struggles. It was so much better being able to hear the author tell the story. I could feel the despair in her voice and it made the book so much more poignant.”
Tricia, Mostly Books
The Shallows
What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
By Nicholas Carr
Narrated by Paul Michael Garcia / 10 hours 5 minutes
“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: as we enjoy the Internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?
Now, Carr... Read More »
The Source of Self-Regard
Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
By Toni Morrison
Narrated by Bahni Turpin / 16 hours 1 minute
Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection--a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.
The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass that are Toni... Read More »
Wolf Hall
A Novel
By Hilary Mantel
Narrated by Simon Slater / 22 hours 59 minutes
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years,... Read More »
Exhalation
Stories
By Ted Chiang
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy Landon & Ted Chiang / 11 hours 21 minutes
Exhalation
“WOW. My first experience with Ted Chiang absolutely blew me out of the water. Each story left me with wide eyes and a racing mind, running to my husband to read a passage so we could both be knocked over with wonder. Exhalation filled me with so many questions about our collective past, present, and future, I’ll be coming back to this book again and again trying to find the answers.”
Kasey Kane, Country Bookshelf
Inland
A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Narrated by Anna Chlumsky, Edoardo Ballerini & Euan Morton / 13 hours 7 minutes
Inland
“Man, I could live my whole life inside this novel and be perfectly happy. Téa Obreht is the real thing. Inland has the stern gorgeousness of Blood Meridian, the cinematic perfection of Station Eleven, the fantasia-like atmosphere of Cloud Atlas, and the deep-heartedness of The Winter Soldier. This is the sort of novel that makes people want to get up and soldier on. I really loved this book.”
Erica Eisdorfer, Flyleaf Books
The Bluest Eye
By Toni Morrison
Narrated by Toni Morrison / 7 hours 5 minutes
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so... Read More »
American Spy
A Novel
By Lauren Wilkinson
Narrated by Bahni Turpin / 10 hours 49 minutes
“American Spy updates the espionage thriller with blazing originality.”—Entertainment Weekly
“There has never been anything like it.”—Marlon James, GQ
“So much fun . . . Like the best of John le Carré, it’s extremely tough to put down.”—NPR
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The... Read More »
Men Without Women
Stories
By Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen
Narrated by Kirby Heyborne / 7 hours 17 minutes
“Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women examines what happens to characters without important women in their lives; it'll move you and confuse you and sometimes leave you with more questions than answers.” —Barack Obama
A dazzling new collection of short stories--the first major new work of fiction from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki... Read More »
Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Narrated by Toni Morrison / 12 hours 2 minutes
New York Times Bestseller
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.
Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the... Read More »
The Nickel Boys
A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Narrated by JD Jackson & Colson Whitehead / 6 hours 45 minutes
The Nickel Boys
“With every book, Colson Whitehead proves his ever-growing genius. He’s a master of the written word and truly one of the greatest living American novelists of our time. I didn’t think it was possible for him to write something better than Underground Railroad, but he most certainly has — The NickelBoys grabbed me at page one. It’s a mystery and a thriller, a treatise on race and social injustice, and a literary masterpiece all rolled into one. Ellwood and Turner are characters that will stay with me forever. This should be mandatory reading in every classroom.”
Michelle Malonzo, Changing Hands
Lab Girl
By Hope Jahren
Narrated by Hope Jahren / 11 hours 37 minutes
Lab Girl
“This book has it all: nature, love, science, drama, heartbreak, joy, and plenty of dirt. Not since Cheryl Strayed's Wild have I read such a rich and compelling nonfiction narrative. Lab Girl is the story of Jahren's life in science, and her writing on the wonders of nature will renew your sense of awe. But more than that, it is an exploration of friendship, mental illness, parenthood, and the messiness of life. The only flaw -- these pages fly by too quickly, leaving you wondering what you could possibly read next that will be just as good.”
Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books
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