Barack Obama's Reading Lists
This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
Barack Obama, 172 Books
This is every book that Barack Obama listed on his yearly reading lists since 2008 to 2015
This list was originally published in 2025 and was added to this site 8 months ago.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17008 | Dying | Cory Taylor | 2016 | Australian | English | |
| 2266 | A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles | 2016 | American | English | |
| 1648 | Sing, Unburied, Sing | Jesmyn Ward | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Coach Wooden And Me | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Basketball | Shea Serrano | 2017 | American | English | |
| 1817 | Barbarian Days | William Finnegan | 2015 | American | English | |
| 769 | The Underground Railroad | Colson Whitehead | 2016 | American | English | |
| 2675 | H Is For Hawk | Helen MacDonald | 2014 | British | English | |
| 7009 | The Girl On The Train | Paula Hawkins | 2015 | British | English | |
| 12451 | Seveneves | Neal Stephenson | 2015 | American | English | |
| 1431 | All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | 2014 | American | English | |
| 1843 | The Sixth Extinction | Elizabeth Kolbert | 2014 | American | English | |
| 13507 | The Lowland | Jhumpa Lahiri | 2013 | American | English | |
| 1207 | Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | 2015 | American | English | |
| 10758 | Washington | Ron Chernow | 2010 | American | English | |
| 17008 | The Whites | Richard Price | 2015 | American | English | |
| 14901 | Purity | Jonathan Franzen | 2015 | American | English | |
| 2320 | The Three-Body Problem | Cixin Liu | 2006 | Chinese | Chinese | |
| 14901 | The Wright Brothers | David McCullough | 2015 | American | English | |
| 2800 | Fates and Furies | Lauren Groff | 2015 | American | English | |
| 5397 | A Constellation of Vital Phenomena | Anthony Marra | 2013 | American | English | |
| 6265 | The Narrow Road To The Deep North | Richard Flanagan | 2013 | Australian | English | |
| 17008 | The Laughing Monsters | Denis Johnson | 2014 | American | English | |
| 4588 | Nora Webster | Colm Toibin | 2014 | Irish | English | |
| 2318 | Being Mortal | Atul Gawande | 2014 | American | English | |
| 4183 | Age of Ambition | Evan Osnos | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Under The Bright Lights | Daniel Woodrell | 1986 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Muscle For The Wing | Daniel Woodrell | 1988 | American | English | |
| 17008 | The Ones You Do | Daniel Woodrell | 1988 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Rodin's Debutante | Ward Just | 2011 | American | English | |
| 5091 | Cutting for Stone | Abraham Verghese | 2009 | American | English | |
| 2310 | To The End Of The Land | David Grossman | 2008 | Israeli | Hebrew | |
| 908 | The Warmth Of Other Suns | Isabel Wilkerson | 2010 | American | English | |
| 1997 | Freedom | Jonathan Franzen | 2010 | American | English | |
| 8973 | Tinkers | Paul Harding | 2009 | American | English | |
| 17008 | A Few Corrections | Brad Leithauser | 2001 | American | English | |
| 17008 | President Reagan | Lou Cannon | 1991 | American | English | |
| 8752 | John Adams | David McCullough | 2001 | American | English | |
| 12371 | Hot, Flat, And Crowded | Thomas L. Friedman | 2008 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Lessons In Disaster | Gordon M. Goldstein | 2008 | American | English | |
| 8310 | Lush Life | Richard Price | 2008 | American | English | |
| 5333 | Plainsong | Kent Haruf | 1999 | American | English | |
| 17008 | The Way Home | George P. Pelecanos | 2009 | American | English | |
| 2842 | What Is the What | Dave Eggers | 2006 | American | English | |
| 3532 | Netherland | Joseph O'Neill | 2008 | Irish | English | |
| 17008 | Common Wealth | Jeffrey D. Sachs | 2008 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Lincoln | Fred Kaplan | 2008 | American | English | |
| 17008 | The Defining Moment | Jonathan Alter | 2006 | American | English | |
| 17008 | Fdr | Jean Edward Smith | 2007 | American | English | |
| 8550 | Ghost Wars | Steve Coll | 2004 | American | English | |
| 9756 | Collected Poems | Derek Walcott | 1986 | Saint Lucian | English | |
| 17008 | Unequal Democracy | Larry Bartels | 2008 | American | English |