Barack Obama to Discuss His Favorite Novels on ‘A Great Book’ Podcast

Barack Obama will discuss a half-dozen of his favorite books on a new six-episode podcast coming exclusively to Audible in September.

A Great Book With Barack Obama will find the former president and yet-to-be-announced guests talking about six books that profoundly shaped his worldview and our society. Among the titles chosen by Obama are Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.

“Great books have always helped me figure out who I am and what I believe. The six books featured in this series have stayed with me throughout my life, and each one has something to teach us about the human experience,” Obama said in a statement. 

“For this podcast, I invited some friends to explore why they resonate, how they can shape our understanding of ourselves and each other, and why literature matters now more than ever. I hope listeners will be inspired to discover or rediscover books that change the way they see themselves and the world.”

The other three books featured in the podcast’s first six episodes are John le Carré’s spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, and the most recently penned book in the podcast series, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning 2004 book Gilead. (Obama has long praised Gilead as one of his favorite books, and even interviewed — while president — Robinson about the book for the New York Review of Books in 2015 when Obama visited Des Moines, where Robinson was teaching at the University of Iowa.)
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A Great Book, premiering Sept. 24, marks the sixth project between Audible and the Obamas’ Higher Ground, which includes Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast and podcasts dedicated to Stevie Wonder (The Wonder of Stevie) and Fela Kuti (Fear No Man).

“President Obama has a remarkable ability to connect books to the questions of who we are and how we see the world,” Rachel Ghiazza, chief content officer at Audible, said in a statement. “In A Great Book, he invites us into deeply personal conversations about books that have shaped not only a president, but also a person and citizen. This series represents everything we strive for at Audible: connecting listeners with transformative storytelling through the intimacy of audio.”