President Barack Obama has shared his annual summer time studying listing for 17 years, beginning in 2009 shortly after taking workplace. The enjoyable custom, which has become a extremely anticipated release for the season, has occurred nearly every 12 months into his post-presidency. Previous authors to make Obama’s coveted cut embody Nigerian bestseller Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and beloved literary icon Toni Morrison.
Obama’s 2026 Summer Reading List was just launched and one of this 12 months’s featured authors who also appeared at our ESSENCE Festival of Culture, Tayari Jones, topped the listing! The proficient Spelman College grad’s newest novel, Kin, is centered around Black Southern ladies navigating friendships, sisterhood and feminine familial bonds and was also the 121st decide for Oprah Winfrey’s common ebook membership. In addition, Obama’s studying listing consists of the remaining installment of a Harlem crime trilogy, Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead who also penned the Pulitzer-Prize successful Nickel Boys which was tailored into a function movie.
While posting his 11 picks, overlaying a vary of genres and themes from gritty NYC crime/suspense reads set in the Nineteen Eighties to a science ebook that examines how knowledge monitoring has functioned as a energy device from historical instances to the fashionable AI age, the history-making husband and father inspired his Instagram followers to share their steered picks as effectively.
Do you need to be a part of Obama in a digital summer time ebook membership for 2026? Of course you do! Don’t fear, we did the digging for you: All his newest ebook picks are simply linked below for your comfort. Happy studying!
Shop Obama’s Favorite Books Below
Cool Machine: A Novel (The Harlem Trilogy) by Colson Whitehead
Available at
Amazon
$31.56
Transcription: A Novel by Ben Lerner
Available at
Amazon
$17
Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate by Roopika Risam
Available at
Amazon
$38.14
One Sun Only: Stories by Camille Bordas
Available at
Amazon
$17.30
Vigil: A Novel by George Saunders
Available at
Amazon
$22.38
This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly Gage
Available at
Amazon
$20
Whistler: A Novel by Ann Patchett
Available at
Amazon
$27.09
A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan
Available at
Amazon
$21.92
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Available at
Amazon
$25.48
Available at
Amazon
$22.45
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