Obama's Summer Reads

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

New Yorker journalist Jonathan Blitzer has been covering the immigration crisis at America’s southern border for nearly a decade, but the current emergency is the end of a much larger story. In this, his first book, Blitzer goes back to the shadowy civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s; to the American prison system in the 1990s and the policies of mass deportation that transformed local street criminals into international crime syndicates; to Honduras’s brutal crackdown on crime in the 2000s and the emergence of gangs across Central America and the United States. And then the Trump era, in which immigration became a vector of resurgent populism, with mass internments the order of the day.Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is a fresh and full account of America’s immigration problems, but it is much more than that. It is an odyssey of struggle and resilience, telling the epic story of people whose lives ebb and flow across the border and those who help and hinder them. It is a gripping and persuasive attempt to answer not only the question of how America got there, but the vital question of who we are and who we want to be in our liberal Western democracies, whether we are incarcerating children on our southern borders or watching them drown on the shores of the Mediterranean.

For generations, the Book of Genesis, included in its entirety here, has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherence, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.Marilynne Robinson's approach is different. Hers is one of an appreciation of Genesis for its greatness as literature, for its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture. She illuminates the importance of the stories of, among others, Adam and Eve; Noah and his ark; the rivalry of Cain and Abel; and the father and son drama of Abraham and Isaac, to consider the profound meanings and promise of God's enduring covenant with humankind. Her magisterial book radiates gratitude for the constancy and benevolence of God's abiding faith in Creation.A brilliant and dramatic close reading of the first book of the Bible focusing on the complex relationship with humankindEndorsements'A work of exceptional wisdom and imagination' — Dr Rowan Williams, Daily Telegraph'Rich and provoking... Robinson has masterfully traced a sense of wonder back to its ancient, remarkable source' — Julian Coman, The Observer'Reading Genesis is alive with questions of kindness, community, and how to express what we so often struggle to put into words' — The New York Times Magazine

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.EndorsementsAn electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” about the radical intimacy of physical competition — Lorrie Moore

Some said it was tragic, what happened to the Van Laars.Some said the Van Laars deserved it. That they never even thanked the searchers who stayed out for five nights in the freezing forest trying to help find their missing son.Some said there was a reason it took the family so long to call for help. That they knew what happened to the boy.Now, fifteen years later, the daughter the family had in their grief has gone missing in the same wilderness as her brother. Some say the two disappearances aren’t connected.Some say they are.A once-in-a-generation story; a novel you'll never forget.EndorsementsSelected by Barack Obama.New York Times bestseller.

A boy meets a girl. The past meets the future. A finger meets a trigger. The beginning meets the end. England is forever. England must fall.In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

Boys and men are struggling. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have many losing ground in the classroom, the workplace, and in the family. While the lives of women have changed, the lives of many men have remained the same or even worsened.Our attitudes, our institutions, and our laws have failed to keep up. Conservative and progressive politicians, mired in their own ideological warfare, fail to provide thoughtful solutions.The father of three sons, a journalist, and a Brookings Institution scholar, Richard V. Reeves has spent twenty-five years worrying about boys both at home and work. His new book, Of Boys and Men, tackles the complex and urgent crisis of boyhood and manhood.Reeves looks at the structural challenges that face boys and men and offers fresh and innovative solutions that turn the page on the corrosive narrative that plagues this issue. Of Boys and Men argues that helping the other half of society does not mean giving up on the ideal of gender equality.A positive vision for masculinity in a postfeminist world

An epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.On July 12, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two and a half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science—the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands.On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.EndorsementsFrom New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides.

In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. "Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves", they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet's early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighbourhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.Moving from the pre-digital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con” right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk” took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals” whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.A lively, revelatory look back at the convulsions at the end of the Reagan era—and their dark legacy today.Endorsements"John Ganz is the most important young political writer of his generation—just the one our dark moment needs." — Rick Perlstein"Lively and kaleidoscopic." — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker"John Ganz belongs to a species of public intellectual that is almost extinct . . . When the Clock Broke is the first of what I hope will be a shelf of books that help us uncover the true history of our times." — Jeet Heer

At a superstore in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every day at 3:55 a.m. Under the red-eyed scrutiny of their self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty delivery trucks of mountains of merchandise, stock the shelves and stagger home (or to another poorly paid day job) before the customers arrive.When Big Will, the store manager, announces he's leaving, everything changes. The eclectic team members now see a way to have their awful line manager promoted up and away from them and to dream of a promotion of their own. Together they set an extravagant plan in motion.

Cyrus Shams is lost.The orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, Cyrus never knew his mother. Killed when her plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident, Cyrus has spent his life grappling with the meaningless nature of his mother’s death. Now he is set to learn the truth of her life.When Cyrus’s obsession with the lives of the martyrs—Bobby Sands, Joan of Arc—leads him to a chance encounter with a dying artist, he finds himself drawn toward the mysteries of his uncle, who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of Death, and toward his mother, who may not have been who or what she seemed.As Cyrus searches for meaning in the scattered clues of his life, a final revelation transforms everything he thought he knew.Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

From New Yorker and Paris Review contributor and Wallace Stegner Fellow Zach Williams comes a staggering debut story collection that confronts parenthood, mortality, and life’s broken promises.Parents awaken in a home in the woods, again and again, to find themselves aging as their infant remains unchanged. An employee is menaced by a conspiracy-minded security guard and accused of sending a sinister viral email. An aging tour guide leads a troublesome group to the site of a UFO, witnessing the slow social deterioration as the rules of decorum go out the window.In each of Williams’ ten stories, time is as fallible as the characters, and reality is witnessed through the gauzy folds of a dream—or a nightmare. Bucolic scenes devolve into harrowing exercises in abandonment; the quotidian nature of office life raises serious questions of existential fortitude. Williams is keenly aware of the insidiousness lurking in the shadows of the everyday, ably spiking it with humor. He depicts the divided self of the parent, the distances necessary to protect our children, and the fallout of our deepest relationships. Williams sees the perversity in the mundane and dares readers to recognize the impact—and beauty—of time’s relentless movement.With exquisite prose and a lacerating wit, Beautiful Days holds a mirror to the many absurdities of being human and refuses to let us look away.

While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture’s most insightful critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the 1990s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with memoir. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jumpshot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”A poignant, personal reflection on basketball, talent and allegiance, and of course, LeBron James. There’s Always This Year is a classic Abdurraqib triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. It’s about basketball in the way They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is about music and A Little Devil in America is about history—no matter the subject, Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.EndorsementsAuthor of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America.