Barack Obama - Wisdom Shelf

Barack Obama Book Recommendations (100 Books)

Barack Obama is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States.

100 Recommended 4 Written

Books Recommended by Barack Obama

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Truth Decay

Michael D. Rich

Source: "A look at how a selective sorting of facts and evidence isn’t just dishonest, but self-defeating to a society that has always worked best when reasoned debate and practical problem-solving thrive." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

The Moment of Lift

Melinda Gates

Source: "Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she’s met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

In the Shadow of Statues

A White Southerner Confronts History

Mitch Landrieu

Source: "An ultimately optimistic take from someone who believes the South will rise again not by reasserting the past, but by transcending it." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

The New Geography of Jobs

Enrico Moretti

Source: "Still a timely and smart discussion of how different cities and regions have made a changing economy work for them." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Speed & Scale

An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now

John Doerr

Source: "If you care about climate change, [this book] offers concrete steps that we can all take to make a difference." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Factfulness

Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Hans Rosling

Source: "A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Why Liberalism Failed

Patrick J. Deneen

Source: "Offers cogent insights into the loss of meaning and community that many in the West feel." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

An American Marriage

A Novel

Tayari Jones

Source: "A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Educated

Source: "A remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

A House for Mr Biswas

A Novel

V. S. Naipaul

Source: "Great novel about growing up in Trinidad and the challenge of post-colonial identity." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Warlight

A Novel

Michael Ondaatje

Source: "A meditation on the lingering effects of war on family." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

The Word Collector

Peter H. Reynolds

Source: "A fun book that vividly illustrates the transformative power of words." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Futureface

A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging

Alex Wagner

Source: "A thoughtful, beautiful meditation on what makes us who we are." - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

Self Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: On the "favorite books" section of Barack Obama's Facebook profile.

0 recommenders

Gilead

Gilead, Book 1

Marilynne Robinson

Source: On the "favorite books" section of Barack Obama's Facebook profile.

0 recommenders

Abraham Lincoln

Selected Speeches and Writings

Abraham Lincoln

Source: On the "favorite books" section of Barack Obama's Facebook profile.

0 recommenders

The Oxford Shakespeare

The Complete Works

William Shakespeare

Source: On the "favorite books" section of Barack Obama's Facebook profile.

0 recommenders

Source: On the "favorite books" section of Barack Obama's Facebook profile.

0 recommenders

All the Light We Cannot See

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

The Sixth Extinction

An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Seveneves

A Novel

Neal Stephenson

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Becoming

Source: "Obviously my favorite [book of 2018]!" - Barack Obama

0 recommenders

The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

H Is for Hawk

Helen Macdonald

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Between the World and Me

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Barbarian Days

A Surfing Life

William Finnegan

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

The Underground Railroad

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Washington

A Life

Ron Chernow

Source: Barack Obama's "2016 Summer Reading List."

0 recommenders

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Men Without Women

Stories

Haruki Murakami

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Exhalation

Stories

Ted Chiang

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

A Gentleman in Moscow

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

Asymmetry

A Novel

Lisa Halliday

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

How to Do Nothing

Resisting the Attention Economy

Jenny Odell

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Florida

Lauren Groff

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

The Broken Ladder

How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die

Keith Payne

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Things Fall Apart

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Return

Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

Hisham Matar

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Evicted

Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

Normal People

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Dying

A Memoir

Cory Taylor

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

The World as It Is

A Memoir of the Obama White House

Ben Rhodes

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

American Spy

A Novel

Lauren Wilkinson

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Topeka School

Ben Lerner

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Tough Love

My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For

Susan Rice

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Shallows

What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

A Grain of Wheat

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Basketball

A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated

Shea Serrano

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

How Democracies Die

Steven Levitsky

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

The Source of Self-Regard

Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

Toni Morrison

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Education of an Idealist

A Memoir

Samantha Power

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

Stories

Denis Johnson

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Trust Exercise

Susan Choi

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

How to Read the Air

Dinaw Mengestu

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Long Walk to Freedom

The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Immigrant, Montana

A Novel

Amitava Kumar

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Frederick Douglass

Prophet of Freedom

David W. Blight

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

There There

A Novel

Tommy Orange

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Feel Free

Essays

Zadie Smith

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Trick Mirror

Reflections on Self-Delusion

Jia Tolentino

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Power

Naomi Alderman

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

Washington Black

Esi Edugyan

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

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The Anarchy

The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

William Dalrymple

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

Native America from 1890 to the Present

David Treuer

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Sixth Man

A Memoir

Andre Iguodala

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Shadow of Sirius

W.S. Merwin

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Inland

Téa Obreht

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Yellow House

A Memoir

Sarah M. Broom

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Maid

Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

Stephanie Land

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Arthur Ashe

A Life

Raymond Arsenault

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Janesville

An American Story

Amy Goldstein

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

American Prison

A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

Shane Bauer

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

The Nickel Boys

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

A Different Way to Win

Dan Rooney's Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule

Jim Rooney

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Coach Wooden and Me

Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

We Live in Water

Stories

Jess Walter

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Lot

Stories

Bryan Washington

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Lost Children Archive

A Novel

Valeria Luiselli

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Five-Carat Soul

James McBride

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

The Orphan Master's Son

A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Adam Johnson

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Finding My Voice

My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward

Valerie Jarrett

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Say Nothing

A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Patrick Radden Keefe

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Sing, Unburied, Sing

A Novel

Jesmyn Ward

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

Grant

Ron Chernow

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017 list.

0 recommenders

Furious Hours

Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

Casey Cep

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Heartland

A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth

Sarah Smarsh

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Solitary

Albert Woodfox

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2019 list.

0 recommenders

Life 3.0

Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Max Tegmark

Source: Barack Obama's favorite books of 2018 list.

0 recommenders

A Promised Land

Of Thee I Sing

The Audacity of Hope

Dreams from My Father

A Story of Race and Inheritance

Other Experts

Caroline Paul

6 books

Cheryl Strayed

6 books

View All

WISDOM

SHELF

Barack Obama Book Recommendations (100 Books)

Truth Decay

The Moment of Lift

In the Shadow of Statues

The New Geography of Jobs

Speed & Scale

Factfulness

Why Liberalism Failed

An American Marriage

Educated

A House for Mr Biswas

Warlight

The Word Collector

Futureface

Self Reliance

Gilead

Abraham Lincoln

The Oxford Shakespeare

Moby Dick

Song of Solomon

Holy Bible

Parting the Waters

All the Light We Cannot See

The Sixth Extinction

The Girl on the Train

Seveneves

Becoming

The Lowland

H Is for Hawk

Between the World and Me

Barbarian Days

The Underground Railroad

Washington

Pachinko

Men Without Women

Exhalation

A Gentleman in Moscow

Asymmetry

How to Do Nothing

Girl, Woman, Other

Florida

The Broken Ladder

Things Fall Apart

Lab Girl

The Return

Evicted

Normal People

Dying

The World as It Is

American Spy

The Topeka School

Tough Love

The Shallows

A Grain of Wheat

Basketball

How Democracies Die

The Source of Self-Regard

The Education of an Idealist

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

Trust Exercise

How to Read the Air

Long Walk to Freedom

Immigrant, Montana

Frederick Douglass

There There

Feel Free

Trick Mirror

The Power

Washington Black

Americanah

Exit West

Anything Is Possible

The Anarchy

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Sixth Man

The Shadow of Sirius