# Barack Obama's favourite books of 2019

Twenty of the books on the reading list Barack Obama shared on 28 December 2019, from Sally Rooney to Ted Chiang.

- 657 votes · 20 items
- Feb 23, 2020 · Ethan Walker
- https://even.best/en/l/1285/barack-obama-s-favourite-books-of-2019

## Top 20

1. **Furious Hours — Casey Cep** (54 · ▲55 ▼1) — True crime and Harper Lee's unfinished book.
2. **The Anarchy — William Dalrymple** (52 · ▲56 ▼4) — History of the East India Company.
3. **The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee — David Treuer** (38 · ▲40 ▼2) — Native American history since 1890.
4. **The Age of Surveillance Capitalism — Shoshana Zuboff** (37 · ▲51 ▼14) — Non-fiction on how tech companies profit from personal data.
5. **Girl, Woman, Other — Bernardine Evaristo** (36 · ▲40 ▼4) — Novel; joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.
6. **How to Do Nothing — Jenny Odell** (30 · ▲34 ▼4) — Resisting the attention economy.
7. **Lost Children Archive — Valeria Luiselli** (28 · ▲32 ▼4) — Novel of a family road trip and the border.
8. **The Yellow House — Sarah M. Broom** (27 · ▲27 ▼0) — Memoir of a New Orleans family home.
9. **Lot — Bryan Washington** (21 · ▲29 ▼8) — Stories set in Houston.
10. **Normal People — Sally Rooney** (20 · ▲23 ▼3) — Novel of two Irish teenagers into adulthood.
11. **Say Nothing — Patrick Radden Keefe** (17 · ▲22 ▼5) — The Troubles and a 1972 disappearance in Belfast.
12. **Trick Mirror — Jia Tolentino** (17 · ▲22 ▼5) — Essays on self-delusion and the internet.
13. **Solitary — Albert Woodfox** (15 · ▲21 ▼6) — Memoir of over four decades in solitary confinement.
14. **American Spy — Lauren Wilkinson** (12 · ▲17 ▼5) — Cold War spy novel.
15. **The Orphan Master's Son — Adam Johnson** (12 · ▲16 ▼4) — Pulitzer-winning novel set in North Korea.
16. **The Topeka School — Ben Lerner** (11 · ▲16 ▼5) — Novel set in 1990s Kansas.
17. **The Sixth Man — Andre Iguodala** (11 · ▲14 ▼3) — Memoir of the NBA player.
18. **Trust Exercise — Susan Choi** (10 · ▲17 ▼7) — Novel set at a performing arts high school.
19. **The Education of an Idealist — Samantha Power** (7 · ▲17 ▼10) — Memoir of the former UN ambassador.
20. **Exhalation — Ted Chiang** (4 · ▲9 ▼5) — Science fiction stories.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.