Sure, the eurozone is collapsing, the economy is headed toward recession, the Middle East is in flames, and the GOP race has finally begun. But what I really want to know is which piece of pretentious literary fiction President Obama will read on vacation this year.
President Bush loved reading books on American diplomatic and political history. But President Obama has evinced a taste for more highbrow fare: In 2007 he famously told David Brooks that Reinhold Niebuhr was “one of my favorite philosophers.” In 2008 he was spotted carrying a copy of Fareed Zakaria’s Post-American World (a sign of what was to come!). In 2009 he read Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland and Richard Price’s Lush Life. In 2010 he got an early copy of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.
