Barack Obama's favourite books of 2021
The top 3 according to 0 votes from people: Matrix — Lauren Groff · How the Word Is Passed — Clint Smith · The Final Revival of Opal & Nev — Dawnie Walton. (Updated Oct 5, 2025.)
The 24 books on the favourite-reads list Barack Obama shared on 17 December 2021, including David Diop's At Night All Blood Is Black.
Automatically translated (original in Français). See the original
Top 24
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1
Matrix — Lauren Groff
Novel about a 12th-century abbey and Marie de France.
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2
How the Word Is Passed — Clint Smith
Slavery through American historic sites.
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3
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev — Dawnie Walton
Novel about a 1970s rock duo.
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4
The Lincoln Highway — Amor Towles
Road novel set in 1954 America.
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5
Invisible Child — Andrea Elliott
Reporting on a homeless girl in New York.
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6
Harlem Shuffle — Colson Whitehead
Crime novel set in 1960s Harlem.
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7
Cloud Cuckoo Land — Anthony Doerr
Novel linking Constantinople, Idaho and a spaceship.
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8
These Precious Days — Ann Patchett
Essays.
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9
Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner
The Japanese Breakfast singer's memoir of her mother.
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10
Aftershocks — Nadia Owusu
Memoir.
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11
Crossroads — Jonathan Franzen
A pastor's family in 1971 Illinois.
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12
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
A family saga in Georgia.
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13
Beautiful Country — Qian Julie Wang
Memoir of an undocumented childhood in New York.
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14
At Night All Blood Is Black — David Diop
A Senegalese soldier in the Great War; written in French.
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15
Land of Big Numbers — Te-Ping Chen
Stories of contemporary China.
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16
Empire of Pain — Patrick Radden Keefe
The Sackler family and OxyContin.
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17
Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Science fiction: a teacher alone in space.
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18
When We Cease to Understand the World — Benjamín Labatut
Stories about 20th-century scientists; written in Spanish.
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19
Under a White Sky — Elizabeth Kolbert
Humans fixing the problems they made in nature.
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20
Things We Lost to the Water — Eric Nguyen
A Vietnamese family in New Orleans.
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21
Leave the World Behind — Rumaan Alam
A holiday weekend during a mysterious blackout.
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22
Klara and the Sun — Kazuo Ishiguro
An Artificial Friend observes a family.
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23
The Sweetness of Water — Nathan Harris
Georgia just after the Civil War.
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24
Intimacies — Katie Kitamura
An interpreter at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
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.
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Comments (5)
Harlem Shuffle de Colson Whitehead, j'ai adoré.
The Lincoln Highway, quel roman !
Toujours de bonnes idées de lecture.
How the Word Is Passed, très fort.
Matrix de Lauren Groff, étonnant.