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Presidential Reading/Nerd Adjacency/Myers-Briggs
What books would you recommend to a president? I'd suggest Middlemarch by George Eliot and Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Why? Because they're awesome.
What are your thoughts?
To a president, or our new President?I've heard that Barack Obama is a science fiction geek. He's also very intellectual and seems to be a man with a strong Christian faith. He's also going to have to bridge many cultures. For him, I would recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
His Facebook page lists as his favorite books:
Song of Solomon
Moby Dick
Parting the Waters Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63
Gilead A Novel
Self-Reliance
Holy Bible KJV - King James Version
And Shakespeare's Tragedies and Lincoln's Collected Writings
"To a president, or our new President?"Either one, I guess. I was speaking generally, myself, but that's only because I can do no better than that.
(My mother has been bugging me to read Gilead!)
I got in a huge fight online just before the election because of a photo of Obama carrying The Post-American World. Somebody forwarded a huge list of people a panicked e-mail asking how we could elect a secret Muslim reading a book by a Muslim advocating the end of America. I tried to tell them what the book was actually about, and show them Zakaria's lengthy and impressive resume, and also that Obama wasn't a secret Muslim. I'm not sure I changed any minds, but I couldn't let that one slide.
Personally, I'd rather my president read daring and forward-thinking books than just stuff that reinforces his own opinions (see Bush's quantity-over-quality reading list).
Frankly, it's ignorant to think that the current form of global organization with one nation-state as hegemon will survive for much longer. Globalization changes everything. America could be a great leader still, but it has to lead differently (not dominate) in this different global environment. We'd do much better to embrace the maxim of the early African-American feminists: "Lifting as we climb." Progress doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Assholes!
Here are Michael Dirda's recommendations for Obama:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/com...
1) Machiavelli, The Prince. You can hardly avoid this great study of how to acquire and retain power. It’s not a pretty picture. But I wonder if its view of politics is still valid.
2) Robert Graves, I, Claudius. Here one sees Machiavelli out Machiavelled. This portrait of jockeying -- and poisoning and seducing -- among the Caesars of Rome is as shocking as it is enthralling. Graves’s book is a historical novel, and is closely based on Suetonius’s equally eye-opening Lives of the Caesars. (For more on this, check out my piece on Suetonius, written for the online Barnes and Noble Review.)
3) Ross Thomas, The Seersucker Whipsaw. Ross Thomas was one of our finest thriller writers, but he also spent a lot of time in Washington, around newspapers, abroad, working for trade unions and doing public relations. This novel -- part thriller, part social commentary -- describes an election in an African country, and is a wonderful portrait of politics in action.
4) Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men. Not only a great American novel, but also the classic portrait of Southern politicking, Louisiana style. Its main character is loosely based on Huey Long -- but it’s also a wonderful, heartbreaking love story. For a related book, see A.J. Liebling’s classic New Yorker portrait of Huey’s brother Earl, The Earl of Louisiana.
5) Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. Is man innately sinful or virtuous? Rousseau argued the latter, maintaining that social and political institutions corrupted our essential goodness. For an alternate view, check out Hobbes’s Leviathan, where man’s life in nature is famously “nasty, brutish and short” and Edmund Burke’s various writings, starting perhaps with Reflections on the Revolution in France.
I'd rather he read a lot of feminist texts (and I think he has!) than these same old brutal ones. We've really gotta start doing human relations--intimate and international ones--in a new way.
Going over the Huey P. Long bridge in New Orleans is terrifying experience.
i really like having a president who is better read than i am. i like this so much. i like this so very very much. i mean, this literally just makes me happy every single day. this makes blue skies out of grey. this gives me a happy place to stand in this my ignorant, arrogant land.
Well said, Jude. I am tickled pink at the idea of my president being so intellectual, well-read, sound of mind, body and soul. *grins*I'd give him some great travel writing - "At Speed" by W. Scott Olsen, for a good clear-the-head and enjoy nature book. And probably some Sarah Vowell, for an amusing, sarcastic, comical look at history and historic landmarks.
Gosh, there are so many others! Wouldn't it be fun if you worked for NPR or another similar organization and you could sit down and talk books with Obama?
Mine as well! I use their "This I Believe" in my classroom (I taught college composition while I was getting my MA and am now getting certified to teach HS). I really believe that if everyone listened to NPR just a few times a week, the world would be a better, more enriched living environment. (I'd recommend it to Obama, but I'm confident he's already a listener ;)
Sarah Pi wrote: "I got in a huge fight online just before the election because of a photo of Obama carrying [b:The Post-American World|2120783|The Post-American World|Fareed Zakaria|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/im..."
Sarah, I think Zakaria is one of the wisest and most intelligent editorialist around. It's one of the reasons I keep renewing my subscription to Newsweek as he is constantly featured in there. If I was disposed to read non-fiction these days, the Post-American World would be the book.
So Obama is a sci-fi geek? ALRIGHT!
Lori, out on the leftish, we have issues with the graceful and entertaining Zakaria. Not the least of which is that he makes so many questionable things sound reasonable.
I'm with Sandi, I'd rec "The Sparrow," to him, but I'm so ***giddy*** that we have a president who is better read than I!!!
Julia wrote: "I'm with Sandi, I'd rec "The Sparrow," to him, but I'm so ***giddy*** that we have a president who is better read than I!!! "
Welcome, Julia! And I share that giddy feeling! I love having a smart and well-read president! Yay!!!
Not only that he is well read and more intelligent than I, but he speaks eloquently as well. It will be nice to go 4 hopefully 8 years without a national shudder every time the president gets near a michrophone.
I may be a bit old for giddy but I do like the blue sky image Jude used. Smiling now and then because we have an intelligent leader is as close as I'm likely to get to giddy.
Sarah Pi wrote: "But think of all the unfortunates who made their livings off of Bushism calendars..."well, there's always Fox News- those folks are apparently digging their heels into whacko for the duration.
Yes, Mr. Limbaugh seems to be reinvigorated as well, unfortunately.And I love that Bill O, in his capacity as a rational and unbiased voice of reason, is now appealing to Obama to watch out for those left wing idealogues.
I wish we got a four year break from Rush and Bill.
I wish we got a four year break from Rush and Bill. ah no - i think wounded sputtering is gonna be every bit as amusing as arrogant gloating - without the by-product despair :->!
Unh unh, I understand we can't shut them down because of the damn 1st Amendment and all, but I really do think they are dangerous. I know soooo many people (most of my family, unfortunately) who listen to what they say as gospel. If nothing else, I think all of their shows should have a real-time fact check ticker scrolling under all of their broadcasts. (Not sure how that would happen in radio...)
well i'm old enough to be unsurprised by anything at this point, but i am sorta thinkin we might get to see news dominated by a reality-based politician...
I read about it on Tor.com before the election. Apparently, he did the "Live long and prosper" thing during a speech somewhere and he's referred to Star Wars several times.
Jackie "the Librarian" wrote: "Yeah, it's hard to stomach sanctimonious, no matter what side it's coming from."Exactly! My husband likes listening to Air America, but I can't stand it for the same reason I can't stand Rush Limbaugh. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are 100% bad or 100% good. Both sides have valid viewpoints and both sides have crappy viewpoints. The reason I voted for Obama is because he promised a move away from the venom that has infected politics in the last couple of decades.
I remember that! Its awesome!
Obama said. "I'm trying to make the world a better place, but with all the time I've been spending deleting e-mails, it's going to take me forever."
Hahahahahaha!!!
In early '04 came to the very sad and deeply disturbing realization my country's governmental policies were evil. I felt helpless and depressed. What could I do? Someone recommended MoveOn to me and I was able to channel my anger. I canvassed my neighborhood to get the vote out for John Kerry, spoke out on the local TV news against Karl Rove, demonstrated against the war, delivered signatures to Carl Levin.I helped bring about change.
MoveOn is the best thing that ever happened to this sonambulistic society.
The issue I have with MoveOn.org is (as the Onion parody notes) they spend much of their time preaching to the choir. Their approach is aggressive and off-putting and doesn’t appeal to many people who don’t already agree with what they’re promoting. Just as PETA does little to appeal to people who are meat-eating/fur-wearers, MoveOn doesn’t market itself very well to people who haven’t “seen the light,” as you suggest, or who might be on the fence.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Sparrow (other topics)Moby Dick (other topics)
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63 (other topics)
Song of Solomon (other topics)
Self-Reliance (other topics)
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