Monday, January 19, 2009

A Reading List That Shaped a President

From this NY Times Article. What is your list?


Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter:

* The Bible
* “Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch
* “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
* Gandhi’s autobiography
* “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin
* “The Golden Notebook,” Doris Lessing
* Lincoln’s collected writings
* “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville
* “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
* Works of Reinhold Niebuhr
* “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson
* Shakespeare’s tragedies

3 comments:

molfe said...

Why are there no children's books on his list? And how did Gilead "form" him when it was written, or at least published, less than 5 years ago?

The Boxcar Children
Where the Wild Things Are
Choose Your Own Adventure books (Thanks for reminding me, Mark)
Corduroy
Amelia Bedelia books
The caterpillar book where it keeps on growing with each turn of the page.

Apparently, from this list, I like being lost, forgotten, and/or growing and clever.

cdee said...

I loved The Boxcar Children and had forgotten about them.

Nancy Drew's

A newsprint series about a haunted school house that I can't remember the name of and this pains me.

Scratch and sniff books, I thought they were magic.

Mary Higgins Clark. In elementary, they gave me nightmares. In jr. high, I started wanting to be a detective.

jack said...

Amelia Bedelia was big for me too, and Miss Piggle Wiggle. Also, the John Bellairs books about Johnny Dixon. Then, Watership Down and Flannery O'Connor (View from the Woods, especially), Lolita, and then the Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett. And now Donna Tartt and Meg Rosoff.

Apparently, from this list, I love it when people get killed (literally or metaphorically) by the people they love the most. Good times.