Barack Obama Releases His Summer Reading List for 2023

Barack Obama’s 2023 summer reading list is out! Just today, the former president tweeted what he’ll be reading this summer and asked followers for even more recommendations. Each year, the books he lists as part of his summer reading are always a good mix of fiction and nonfiction, with differing genres — though he might enjoy reading a little more romance, if we’re keeping it real. This year’s selections showcase his usual eclectic interests — there’s a sociologist’s nonfiction account of why poor people stay poor in the U.S., a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a contemporary tale of Ghanian siblings, gritty Southern noir, and more.

Get ready to read along with Barack Obama’s 2023 summer reading list:

Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmnd

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehan

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

What Napoleon Could Not Do by DK Nnuro

The Wager by David Grann

Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison

Under the tweet mentioning his summer books, he also wrote about how the Digital Public Library of America has launched The Banned Book Club to combat the plethora of book bans that have been plaguing libraries across the country. This comes just days after he posted a letter in which he and Michelle Obama thanked librarians for defending the freedom to read amidst a slew of book banning.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.