Obama’s Favorite Books of 2025

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Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2025

Obama’s now semi-annual drop of his favorite books of the year has become possibly the most anticipated list in the publishing world. I haven’t seen (or heard anecdotally) whether a mention moves a bunch of copies, but there is undoubtedly prestige in that cool-kid-at-school-gave-me-a-high-five kinda way. And do not mistake me: if I got that high-five, I would never wash my hand.

Here are his picks:

• Paper Girl by Beth Macy
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• We the People by Jill Lepore
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone
• North Sun by Ethan Rutherford
• 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• The Look by Michelle Obama

Fall Book Sales Looking Strong

Double digit improvements over 2024 are nothing to sneeze at. That’s what publishing saw in September, with 14% more books being bought in the month this year than last. And October’s numbers are also strong, up more than 6%. Adult fiction led the way, growing more than 11%. The caveat here, if it is a caveat really, is how much of this is Amazon returning to more normal buying patterns? And does that mean more people are buying books or that Amazon will be returning a bunch of them later or what? Still, up is better than down.

A Reading List for the End of Civilization

I don’t much time for doomerism these days. Yes, there is much to resist, bemoan, and decry. But “sky is falling” discourse really only serves to paralyze (Chicken Little, even if were right, wasn’t exactly preparing for what happens if the sky did actually fall). But Ted Gioia isn’t Chicken Little, but he also not a fiddling grasshopper. So he does in fact have a collection of books about the ending and fall of things, which serve as warning and might, just might, contain wisdom about how to avoid the very worst outcomes.