On previous visits to Martha's Vineyard, President Obama has topped off his summer vacation with a stop at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore. This year, he skipped it. So we have lost one clue to the president's summer reading list.
The oversight comes at a sensitive time in Obama's relations with the nation's booksellers. Earlier this summer he raised their hackles by visiting an Amazon.com distribution center in Tennessee and speaking admiringly of the work it does during the holiday rush. People who make their living by selling books in stores said they felt slighted by the visit and the president's remarks. Publisher's Weekly published an item under the headline, "Does President Obama Hate Indie Bookstores?"
We do not know the president's attitude toward independent booksellers, or whether the skipped bookstore visit was a deliberate snub, or what's on his summer reading list. But we do know that there's a good bookstore, Politics and Prose, just 5 miles from the White House. It's about an 18-minute drive, in light traffic (and even less time when traveling by motorcade). We talk with the owner and a book critic about what the president might want to read if he can find the time.
Books mentioned on air:
"Dreams of My Father" by Barack Obama
"Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Krueger
"The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman
"The Wolf Gift" by Anne Rice
"The Woman Upstairs" by Claire Messud
"The Emperor's Children" by Claire Messud
"The Last Life" by Claire Messud
"Unseen" by Karin Slaughter
"Manson" by Jeff Guinn
"The Faraway Nearby" by Rebecca Solnit
"Return to Oakpine" by Ron Carlson
"Transatlantic" by Colum McCann
"The Illusion of Separateness" by Simon Van Booy
"The Late Homecomer" by Kao Kalia Yang
"In Other Worlds" by Margaret Atwood
"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
"A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" by Anthony Marra
"The Son" by Philipp Meyer
"The Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown
Books from callers that didn't make it to air:
"Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
"Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver
"Red Moon" by Ben Percy
"God's Jury" by Cullen Murphy
"Foreign Policy Begins at Home" by Richard Haass
"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery
"The Dirty Wars" by Jeremy Scahill
"The Debt" by Randall Robinson
"The Healing" by Jonathan Odell
"Mink River" by Brian Doyle