President Barack Obama Loves Books & Lists, So He’s Combining Them For A New Audible Series
President Barack Obama is known for his prodigious list making. He’s also an avid reader. So the 44th President is bringing two of his favorite hobbies together in a new podcast series.
He is hosting A Great Book with Barack Obama for Amazon’s Audible. It forms part of his first-look deal with the audio service that he operates through his production company Higher Ground.
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The series, which will launch on September 24, will see the former Commander-in-Chief sit down with “six luminaries to discuss the books that have profoundly shaped his worldview and our society”.
The books set to be covered are The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré.
A Great Book marks Higher Ground’s sixth podcast for Audible, since it signed a deal in 2022, having previously been set up at Spotify. Other shows include Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast, Your Mama’s Kitchen: Conversations from the Heart of the Home, The Wonder of Stevie, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man and Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise.
The move comes a week after President Obama debuted his latest summer reading list, which featured books including Michael Pollan’s A World Appears, George Saunders’ Vigil and Colson Whitehead’s Cool Machine.
President Barack Obama said, “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. 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.”
“President Obama has a remarkable ability to connect books to the questions of who we are and how we see the world. 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,” added Rachel Ghiazza, Chief Content Officer at Audible. “This series represents everything we strive for at Audible: connecting listeners with transformative storytelling through the intimacy of audio. We’re honored to continue our collaboration with Higher Ground and to bring this series to our global audience.”
