Barack Obama is weighing in on the books we should all be adding to our reading lists this summer.
The former president turned cultural tastemaker shared “some books that I’m reading this summer” on Thursday in the annual tradition of sharing his summer reading list.
“Check them out and let me know what I should be reading next,” he wrote in his social media post.
The titles range from thrillers (“All the Sinners Bleed,” “Birnam Wood”) to non-fiction (“Poverty, By America,” “King: A Life,” “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder”), and the list includes books that might already be familiar to people who keep up with the buzziest books of the year.
Barack Obama’s 2023 summer reading recommendations
These nine books made the cut for Obama’s recommendations list:
Check out: USA TODAY’s weekly Best-selling Booklist
- “Poverty, By America,” by Matthew Desmond
- “Small Mercies,” by Dennis Lehane
- “King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig
- “Hello Beautiful,” by Ann Napolitano
- “All the Sinners Bleed,” by S.A. Cosby
- “Birnam Wood,” by Eleanor Catton
- “What Napoleon Could Not Do,” by DK Nnuro
- “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder” by David Grann
- “Blue Hour,” by Tiffany Clarke Harrison
Several of Obama’s recommendations — “Hello Beautiful,” “All the Sinners Bleed,” “The Wager” — also found themselves on Amazon’s best books of the year (so far) list. “King: A Life,” “Small Mercies” and “Poverty, By America” were runners-up.
Earlier this year, Napolitano’s “Hello Beautiful,” which pays homage to Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” had the distinction of being the 100th novel to be included in Oprah’s book club.
For your to-read list:10 page-turning thrillers from S. A. Cosby, Jake Tapper and more
