Posted on 08/20/2011 11:37:01 AM PDT by Libloather
Obama summer reading list leans toward fiction
By Alister Bull and Laura MacInnis
Reuters 8 mins ago
VINEYARD HAVEN, Massachusetts (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, perhaps seeking a break from harsh reality after a tough summer battling the economy and Republicans in Congress, has picked a summer reading list that is long on fiction.
The White House says four of the five books that Democrat Obama has to choose from during a nine-day family vacation here are novels.
Obama's reading list -- like the criticism from Republicans for vacationing while the economy is stumbling -- is a rite of the summer.
But his choices ignored the weighty biographies of great Americans typically on a president's reading list.
Obama picked up two of the books on an outing with daughters Sasha and Malia on Friday: "The Bayou Trilogy," a mystery collection by Daniel Woodrell set in Louisiana, and "Rodin's Debutante," a novel by Ward Just with a character who becomes politically conscious after moving to a rough neighborhood on Chicago's south side, echoing Obama's time there as a community organizer before he entered politics.
The president also bought along books: "Cutting for Stone," a novel by Abraham Verghese that traces the lives of two boys who are born joined at the skull in Ethiopia, and "To the End of the Land," a novel by David Grossman of a mother who tries to keep her son alive while he is at war by hiking the length of Israel, hoping that if she cannot be reached to be told of his death, he won't die.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The cretin-in-chief is taxing both of his meager neurons reading those books...let alone anything with real meat.
the Pres__ent also picked up a copy of Aldous Huxleys Brave New World." A few outlets have mentioned it, but all of those have pointed out that the book is on the required reading list for Malia's school this year.
I hope that's the case. I hope he didn't just buy that to find a plan to announce in his big speech when vacation is over.
You recommend a terrific book that Obama should read. The lessons contained could turn the country around if applied. I am afraid though, that he doesn’t have a long enough attention span to read this book, or any other non-fiction treatise of moderate length and degree of detail. It would be “above his pay-grade”.
I guess he’s tired of Rules for Radicals.
The little marxist who could? Little Red Bolshevik?
Farming collectives for dummies?
This official reading list seems so political.
And note to the President: Brave New World” is a warning, not an instruction manual.
“The Forgotten Man” would be an excellent book for anyone’s reading list.
Now there’s a coincidence! His speeches “lean towards fiction” also.
Puh-leeze. Like he’s actually going to read anything other than a comic book. About as vapid and hollow as they come.
Meanwhile, remember the reading contests Bush and Rove used to have? I hadn’t even heard of half the titles they’ve read.
I sincerely doubt he reads these books. He probably has a staffer choose titles Marxists like his voters would like.
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