Barack Obama's favourite books of 2025
The top 3 according to 0 votes from people: Paper Girl — Beth Macy · Flashlight — Susan Choi · We the People — Jill Lepore. (Updated Mar 4, 2026.)
The 21 books Barack Obama picked as his favourites of the year on 22 December 2025, including new novels by Kiran Desai, Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan.
Automatically translated (original in Norsk). See the original
Top 21
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1
Paper Girl — Beth Macy
Non-fiction about the author's Ohio hometown.
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2
Flashlight — Susan Choi
Novel about a family and a vanished father.
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3
We the People — Jill Lepore
A history of the US Constitution.
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4
The Wilderness — Angela Flournoy
Novel about five friends over twenty years.
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5
There Is No Place for Us — Brian Goldstone
Reporting on the working homeless in the US.
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6
North Sun — Ethan Rutherford
Novel about a 19th-century whaling ship.
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7
1929 — Andrew Ross Sorkin
The 1929 stock market crash.
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8
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny — Kiran Desai
Novel of two young Indians between India and the US.
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9
Dead and Alive — Zadie Smith
Essays.
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10
What We Can Know — Ian McEwan
Novel moving between our time and a future England.
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11
The Look — Michelle Obama
On style and fashion in the White House years.
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12
Mark Twain — Ron Chernow
A biography.
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13
The Book of Records — Madeleine Thien
Novel.
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14
King of Ashes — S. A. Cosby
Crime novel.
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15
Rosarita — Anita Desai
Novella about a young woman in Mexico.
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16
Audition — Katie Kitamura
Novel about an actress and a young man.
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17
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter — Stephen Graham Jones
Horror novel.
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18
Abundance — Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
On building more in America.
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19
A Marriage at Sea — Sophie Elmhirst
A couple adrift after a whale sank their boat.
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20
Who Is Government? — ed. Michael Lewis
Essays about public servants.
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21
The Sirens' Call — Chris Hayes
On the attention economy.
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 (4)
Paper Girl, rørende.
We the People av Jill Lepore, viktig.
Fin liste for vinteren.
Flashlight av Susan Choi, sterk bok.