TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Barack Obama reveals his favorite books of 2019
Change Size
Former US President Barack Obama speaks at an innovative communications conference organized by Les Napoleons network group, where he appears as a guest of honor, in Paris, on December 2, 2017. (AFP/Martin Bureau)
B
arack Obama took to social media on the weekend to share his favorite reads of 2019 -- a scholarly list that shows the former US president remains very much a bookworm.
The now traditional yearly list ranges across history, economics and award-winning literature and even singles out a couple of recommendations for sports fans.
“As we wind down 2019, I wanted to share with you my annual list of favorites that made the last year a little brighter,” Obama said in a posting on Twitter. “We’ll start with books today — movies and music coming soon. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.”
As we wind down 2019, I wanted to share with you my annual list of favorites that made the last year a little brighter. We’ll start with books today — movies and music coming soon. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. pic.twitter.com/l5qTGkAPok
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 28, 2019
During his eight years in the Oval Office, Obama was renowned as a voracious reader and regularly espoused the delights and benefits of the written word. In a longer posting on Instagram, he said the list had become a “fun little tradition.”
“Because while each of us has plenty that keeps us busy -— work and family life, social and volunteer commitments -- outlets like literature and art can enhance our day-to-day experiences,” he wrote. “They’re the fabric that helps make up a life.”
Read also: 5 ways to read free books online
These are Obama’s choices:
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
- The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple
- Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
- How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
- Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
- Lot: Stories by Bryan Washington
- Normal People by Sally Rooney
- The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
- The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
- Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Solitary by Albert Woodfox
- The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
- Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
- We Live in Water: Stories by Jess Walter
- A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney’s Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule by Jim Rooney
- The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala
