Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2022

"I always look forward to sharing my lists of favorite books, movies, and music with all of you.   First up, here are some of the books I read and enjoyed this year."
Updated January 3, 2023
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Sea of Tranquility
Mandel, Emily St. John
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years...
Trust
Díaz, Hernán
Paper Book
An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they...
Black cake : a novel
Wilkerson, Charmaine
Paper Book
NOW A HULU STREAMING SERIES * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * Two estranged siblings delve into their mother's hidden past--and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake--in this immersive family saga, "a...
The candy house
Egan, Jennifer
Paper Book
From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a "sibling novel" to her Pulitzer Prize- and NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad--an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories...
An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "thrilling" (The New York Times), "dazzling" (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize-winning science...
The school for good mothers: a novel
Chan, Jessamine
Paper Book
In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn't have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents' sacrifices. She can't persuade her husband...
The light we carry : overcoming in uncertain times
Obama, Michelle
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER * In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world.<...
Ducks : two years in the oil sands
Beaton, Kate
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable book! One of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2022! Winner of Canada Reads 2023! "An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival."--Carmen Maria Machado Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times...
Liberation Day : stories
Saunders, George
Paper Book
South to America : a journey below the Mason-Dixon to understand the soul of a nation
Perry, Imani
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South--and thus of America--by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration." -...
Afterlives
Gurnah, Abdulrazak
Paper Book
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 A NEW YORKER "ESSENTIAL READ" A NATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, THE NEW YORKER, BOOKPAGE, AND KIRKUS...
The furrows : an elegy
Serpell, Namwali
Paper Book
I don't want to tell you what happened; I want to tell you how it felt. Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother Wayne is seven. One day, when they are alone together, there is an accident, and Wayne is lost forever. Though his body is never recovered, their mother is...

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