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Introduction
IT IS JULY 14, as I am writing this. This means that former US President, Barack Obama, should be making public his annual reading list anytime now, judging by past summers.
These lists, first released in the summer of 2009, have become highly anticipated among many book lovers, not only because he always seems to offer up the perfect blend of diverse reads — both fiction and non-fiction — but also because he has impeccable taste when it comes to books. I found some of my favourite books rummaging through these lists: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and Educated by Tara Westover are only a few of them.
It is not unusual for leaders, in politics or in business, to tout the virtues of reading. Many of them also routinely share book recommendations. What, I think, set Obama apart from Warren Buffet or Bill Gates is not only the varied and diverse genres as well as the amount of fiction he reads, but also that he reads novels from up-and-coming new writers, instead of only the classics. Case in point: of the 13 titles he recommended in 2022, eight are fiction and quite a few of them debut novels.
