Another summer, another list of summer reads from Barack Obama.
The 44th US president recommended dozens of books during his two terms, but Obama only started sharing summer reading lists—often alongside his annual Martha’s Vineyard vacation—in 2009. The latest list was released Thursday (15 August) on Instagram.
In honor of nearly a decade of spectacular book recommendations, we’re looking back at all of Obama’s summer-reading recommendations. Even though it’s already August, the former president’s idea of a “light read”—The Sixth Extinction?—is one that works in any season.
The Way Home, by George Pelecanos
Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Tom Friedman
Lush Life, by Richard Price
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
John Adams, by David McCullough
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
Tinkers, by Paul Harding
A Few Corrections, by Brad Leithauser
The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
Rodin’s Debutante, by Ward Just
To the End of the Land, by David Grossman
The Bayou Trilogy, by Daniel Woodrell
2012 – A busy year—reading list not disclosed.
2013 – Another busy year! No time for books.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra
The Narrow Road to the Deep North,by Richard Flanagan
The Laughing Monsters,by Denis Johnson
Nora Webster, by Colm Toibin
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos
The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolber
Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
All That Is,by James Salter
The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri
All the Light We Cannot See,by Anthony Doerr
Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan
H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald
The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
Seveneves,by Neal Stephenson
The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
2017 (Note: This was a year-end round-up, so not explicitly for summer. But as a bonus, Obama also released a playlist this year.)
The Power, by Naomi Alderman
Grant,by Ron Chernow
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
Janesville: An American Story,by Amy Goldstein
Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
Five-Carat Soul,by James McBride
Anything Is Possible,by Elizabeth Strout
Dying: A Memoir,by Cory Taylor
A Gentleman in Moscow,by Amor Towles
Sing, Unburied, Sing,by Jesmyn Ward
Coach Wooden and Me, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Basketball (and Other Things), by Shea Serrano
Educated, by Tara Westover
Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje
A House for Mr. Biswas, by V.S. Naipaul
An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
2019
The collected works of Toni Morrison
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
Wolf Hall,by Hillary Mantel
Men Without Women, by Haruki Murakami
American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson
The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr
Lab Girl, by Hope
JahrenInland, by Téa Obreht
How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu
Maid, by Stephanie Land
