Skip navigation
Skip content
Barack Obama's Summer Reading List 2019

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,

Playlist Tags: season: summer audience: obama fans

View all playlists

Maid

Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

By Stephanie Land
Narrated by: Stephanie Land
Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

Maid

“Stephanie Land’s Maid is a must-read of the highest order, a memoir of a single mother struggling to survive while performing the household labor that many of us take for granted. While at once deeply personal — you’ll fall hard for Stephanie and her daughter, Mia — it is also essential social commentary about how we treat the myriad domestic laborers who toil in our homes, oftentimes unseen and unappreciated. Read it alongside Nickel and Dimed or Evicted for a stunning, unforgettable look at American poverty and determination.”

East City Bookshop image Emilie Sommer, East City Bookshop
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

The Shallows

What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

By Nicholas Carr
Narrated by: Richard Powers
Length: 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 »

Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

The Source of Self-Regard

Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

By Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 16 hours 1 minute

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that "speaks to today’s social and political moment as directly as this morning’s headlines” (NPR).

These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of... Read more »

Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Librofm App

Special offer

Free audiobook with membership

For a limited time, when you sign up for a new monthly membership with code CHOOSEINDIE, we’ll give you a bonus audiobook! That means you’ll have 2 audiobook credits to redeem from the start.

Claim special offer

Wolf Hall

A Novel
Wolf Hall Trilogy: Book #1

By Hilary Mantel
Narrated by: Simon Slater
Length: 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 »

Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Exhalation

Stories

By Ted Chiang
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy Landon & Ted Chiang
Length: 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.”

Country Bookshelf image Kasey Kane, Country Bookshelf
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Inland

A Novel

By Téa Obreht 
Narrated by: Anna Chlumsky, Edoardo Ballerini & Euan Morton
Length: 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.”

Flyleaf Books image Erica Eisdorfer, Flyleaf Books
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

The Bluest Eye

By Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

The Bluest Eye

“Toni Morrison was a visionary. This, her first novel, was my first foray into her work, and I found it approachable, yet deep with meaning. It borrows its structure from a children’s Dick and Jane story, which Toni reads like a haunting incantation. Her narration of the entire book is flawless and stunning, like the text itself. The novel circles around Pecola, who rarely narrates but whose story is largely told by other characters, often children. Her story is traumatic yet minimally graphic, making it appropriate, even, for most sensitive readers.”

Raven Book Store image Mary, Raven Book Store
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

American Spy

A Novel

By Lauren Wilkinson
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 10 hours 49 minutes

American Spy

“Part literary fiction, part spy novel, punctuated by black American history, Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel crosses time periods and genres. This unflinching portrayal of a young black woman who becomes a Fed during the height of the Cold War is based on the true story of Thomas Sankara, known as “Africa’s Che Guevara.” Politics, illicit relationships, and family drama all converge in this tale of American history, disguised as a thriller, written like a memoir. Be brave. Be groundbreaking. Take risks. Live to see the consequences of your actions and to be bold another day.”

River Dog Book Co. image BrocheAroe, River Dog Book Co.
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Men Without Women

Stories

By Haruki Murakami
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Including the story "Drive My Car”—now an Academy Award–nominated film—this collection from the internationally acclaimed author "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).

Across seven... Read more »

Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Beloved

By Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 12 hours 2 minutes

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author. 

This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.


Sethe... Read more »

Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

A Novel

By Colson Whitehead
Narrated by: JD Jackson & Colson Whitehead
Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

“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.”

Changing Hands image Michelle Malonzo, Changing Hands
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Lab Girl

By Hope Jahren
Narrated by: Hope Jahren
Length: 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.”

Green Apple Books image Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books
Audiobook details   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account