What does one do after leaving the White House? Well, if you're Barack Obama, you write a critically acclaimed memoir, work on your presidential center, take spectacular vacations with A-list celebrities, and find plenty of time to curl up with a batch of really good books.
Obama's known as a prolific reader, and he's also known as one of our coolest presidents in recent memory. So when he praises a title, libraries everywhere must prepare themselves for an avalanche of requests from curious bookworms eager to devour whatever's on the former commander-in-chief's shelves. Lucky for us, Obama loves sharing — he posts annual lists of his favorite books, movies, and music, and they're a yearly source of inspiration for entertainment lovers around the country.
We've rounded up a list of his favorites from the last few years. Obama's tastes run the gamut, so you'll find gripping fiction and eye-opening non-fiction (and, because he's a dreamily devoted partner to his wife, there are a couple of works by Michelle Obama, too). No matter what sort of read you're looking for, you're guaranteed to find at least a few well-reviewed options among Obama's recommendations.
Obama's favorite books of 2025
- Paper Girl by Beth Macy
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- We the People by Jill Lepore (Check out Katie's interview with Lepore.)
- The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
- There is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone
- North Sun by Ethan Rutherford
- 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Check out Katie's interview with Sorkin.)
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
- Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- The Look by Michelle Obama ("Obviously I'm biased," the former president notes.)
Obama's favorite books of 2024
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Check out Katie's interview with Haidt.)
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
- Patriot by Alexei Navalny
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
- Stolen Pride by Arlie Russell Hochschild (Check out Katie's interview with Hochschild.)
- In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
- Growth by Daniel Susskind
- Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu
- The Work of Art by Adam Moss
Obama's favorite books of 2023
- The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
- The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut
- Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
- How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
- The Wager by David Grann
- Chip War by Chris Miller
- The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
- Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell
- King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
- The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen
- All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
- The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta
- Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista
- This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Obama's favorite books of 2022
- The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
- Trust by Hernan Diaz
- The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff
- The Furrows by Namwali Serpell
- South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
- Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
- An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
- Liberation Day by George Saunders
- The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
- Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Obama's favorite books of 2021
- Matrix by Lauren Groff
- How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
- The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
- The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
- Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
- These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
- Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
- Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
- The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
Obama's favorite books of 2020
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- Jack by Marilynne Robinson
- Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
- The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
- Luster by Raven Leilani
- How Much Of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
- Long Bright River by Liz Moore
- Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
- Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
- Deacon King Kong by James McBride
- The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
- Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
- Missionaries by Phil Klay
