So, last week, my personal gentleman associate was all, “OMG the President is reading everything that I read last summer!” And I was like, “OMG so true!” There might have been an “LOL” in that conversation, too. But, anyway, Presidential reading lists are always strange, because clearly they are selected to maintain a certain image (ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ELECTED OFFICIALS CAREFULLY MANAGE THEIR IMAGES??!!!?) but this one is really strange because Obama seems to be creating an image specifically tailored to appeal to me and other people who share my entirely predictable pretentious-young-city-person tastes. It’s kind of fun! And I like it! And this may be the silliest and most lady-free thing I have ever written for CiF, but I think you should read it anyway.
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10 Comments
I think it’s fun how the literary critics came out on the comments thread at CiF to debate the relative merits of Tom Clancy vs. Harry Turtledove.
I may or may not agree with you about Morrison being America’s greatest living writer, but Clancy?
Is everything going to be an important announcement from now on? When are we going to get some unimportant announcements or important proclamations?
See this:
http://wonkette.com/410681/obama-cant-finish-awful-tom-friedman-book-either
Obama may be an avid reader, but he can’t seem to finish a book written by Thomas Friedman! But then again, who can?? (I’ve been trying to read “Longitudes and Attitudes” all summer, and can’t bring myself to read further than halfway through the damn book!)
Ha! Laura, I totally got halfway through Hot, Flat, and Crowded and could go no further, so I can relate.
I don’t see any female authors on his list. You’re not kidding when you say this is lady-free. D:
I just started “Netherland,” and I am deep in it’s enthrall so far. I thought maybe it’d be another mediocre, over-hyped novel, because the NY lit scene is so incredibly prone to that (Someone who went to my school had a first novel that was put on the cover of the NYTRB despite it’s terrible prose and trite and shopworn ideas- how long ago did Douglas Coupland coin the term Generation X!?!) So much of his attention seemed to stem from the fact that he wrote about prep school and Harvard, and therefore had certain status claims. It struck me as a faux-literary equivalent of Candace Bushnell, just so much voyeurism.
Anyway, I have taken a very ranty turn, but I wanted to add that women generally seem to be given so much less attention by the “literary” scene. Men are so consistently shown a different level of respect. And that’s in a scene that purports to be based around creativity, which to me involves a quest for difference.
OH WAIT in your article you already linked to that same thing I linked to! Well I guess my previous comment is still relevant, for lazy people with short attention spans! (like me??)
tigerbeatdown.com to GoogleReader!
And aren’t all the authors on there white?
Yes, Katie, but Friedman is always chit chatting with non-white taxi drivers, so clearly he brings a multi-ethnic perspective to the forefront.