What Books President Obama And Family Are Reading While On Vacation

I love these type of stories!  (There were not many of these types to report during the last administration………unless  you count the famous statement by Bush, “I also read three Shakespeare’s.”)

“With the web atwitter with news … that President Obama had purchased Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, ‘Freedom,’ … POLITICO began to wonder how, exactly, POTUS was able to get his hands on a book that isn’t being released until Aug. 31. Turns out Obama … was given an advance reading copy by the folks at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore … ‘We as book sellers get advanced reading copies, and we had an ARC. We had it in our back room and gave it to him as a gift,’ said store employee Katie Hakala. … According to Hakala, he purchased the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Tinkers’ by Paul Harding. Store employee Leroy Hazelton also noted that Obama bought Brad Leithauser’s ‘A Few Corrections,’ too, after Hazelton recommended it … Jayna Richardson of Kramerbooks & Afterwords in Washington said that ‘Freedom’ — and the other books Obama and family picked up today — will definitely get a sales boost. ‘Last summer, when he was reading four or five books on vacation, sales of all those shot through the roof.’”

–AP’s Mark S. Smith and Glen Johnson: “For the girls, the president bought … ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee and ‘The Red Pony’ by John Steinbeck.”