August 27, 2025, 1:56pm
Every year since his inauguration, President Obama has released a reading list spotlighting his favorite books. Like a fireside chat with FDR, this tradition familiarized the man. We got a sense of his taste, his style. And such a high-profile fan out was only awesome for Big Publishing.
Now that he’s out of office and into media mogul-ing, Obama continues to share summer reads. And this year’s list, announced on Insta today, is a fun one. Apparently a mix of pop histories, best-selling cross-over novels, and—refreshingly—some weirder genre fiction caught the president’s eye this season.
Here’s everything our last literate leader read and loved over the summer.
Ron Chernow, Mark Twain
The biographer who revived the reputation of our first Secretary of the Treasury—and incidentally launched a trillion amateur rap battles—set his sights on a beloved American satirist this year. No surprise to see a patriotic doorstop on the president’s list.
My only question here is, given the Midas-touch of a Chernow treatment, can we expect a bluegrass musical starring Samuel Clemens in 2026? Attention, Broadway!
Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
On the other hand, I was surprised to find this thriller from a maestro on the president’s list. Stephen Graham Jones’ historical horror sets us in 1912, on the Blackfeet nation. Called a “spellbinding yarn about one of the bloodiest, most significant parts of this country’s history,” this one is propulsive.
And a tad dark, for the beach.
Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records
A dystopian fantasy set on a migrant compound, this novel makes for another eerier entry. In elegant, ambitious prose, Thien more than hints at many modern conundrums—like the refugee crisis.
A theme emerges. Obama’s clearly not reading to escape these days.
Sophie Elmhirst, A Marriage at Sea
This buzzy history sounds like something out of O’Henry, though the events it describes are all too real. Two married sea-explorers are stranded, Gilligan-style, after a storm shipwrecks their craft. What follows is a thrilling tale of survival and forced intimacy.
The book has been collecting laurels from both the literati and the trades. So again, no surprise to find it in the presidential spotlight.
Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson, Abundance
This history of a slippery concept arrived to some critical controversy earlier this year. (Critical to academics, that is.) But in this history, Thompson and Klein, bard of the Times’ daily podcast, make a legible case for the failings of 20th century liberalism.
A very Obama book.
Katie Kitamura, Audition
Rejoice! Another weird, intellectual novel makes the list! This slim, strange punch of a book turns a trio on its head. And like A Marriage at Sea, Audition has fresh things to say about the potential prison of intimacy—even though all its shipwrecks take place on land.
S.A. Cosby, King of Ashes
Here we find a good old fashioned page-turner. This Southern Gothic looks at a crime family gone berserk, in The Godfather way. It’s certainly no surprise to find this book on the list, given that Higher Ground—the Obamas’ media company—won the adaptation rights in a hot auction last fall.
Michael Lewis, Who is Government?
Who indeed? In this collection, the wiseguy who brought us Moneyball and The Big Short turns his editorial eye to the public service.
As a group narrative effort, this somehow feels like the most Obama-y book on the list.
Anita Desai, Rosarita
The president rounded out August with a quieter entry—an intimate, dreamy novel from Anita Desai. Rosarita follows two women who have an uncanny encounter in Mexico City. Meditative and confidently strange, this one suggests a psychic journey’s unfolding behind the scenes.
Chris Hayes, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource
And lastly, we find a prescient pop-psych study. Attention is a dwindling resource. The president knows it, and now so do you.
Go forth and gather, citizen-readers.
