What books should all presidential candidates read?

Republican presidential candidates
Republican presidential candidates faced policy questions at the August debate, but here's another question: What are you reading?
Mandel Ngan | Getty Images

Running the country is a monumental task. It calls for a strong grasp of a wide range of topics: economics, foreign affairs, history, science.

What books would help candidates prepare for the office? And what role can fiction play in educating candidates?

MPR News' Kerri Miller asked two prolific readers with extensive knowledge of both politics and books to share their lists: Tim Walch and Lissa Muscatine.

Tim Walch's list: The historian's perspective

Lissa Muscatine's list: The speechwriter's (and bookseller's) perspective

Listeners' choice: Recommendations from the public

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

Both Walch and Muscatine agreed that books on science should be high on all candidates' reading lists.

"We need to talk about climate change, we need to talk about science, we need to talk about science more seriously," said Walch.

And there's nothing like learning from the greats: Both put David Donald's biography "Lincoln" on their recommendation lists. They're not alone: When Bill Clinton was asked to recommend one book for his successor, George W. Bush, he named Donald's "Lincoln."

The historian's perspective

Walch is a historian and the retired director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Ia. His list comes in two parts: First, the history.

Walch recommends that candidates brush up on their knowledge of the men who came before them. Eleven presidential biographies should do the trick:

"Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow

"John Adams" by David McCullough

"American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson" by Joseph Ellis

"American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House" by Jon Meacham

"Lincoln" by David Donald

"The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism" By Doris Kearns Goodwin

"Woodrow Wilson: A Biography" by John Milton Cooper

"Franklin Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny" by Frank Freidel

"Truman" by David McCullough

"Eisenhower in War and Peace" by Jean Edward Smith

"Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973" by Robert Dallek

With history covered, Walch branched out to classic novels and modern books on innovation, curating what he called "an eclectic collection of stories about courage, vision and values."

Classics

"Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department" by Dean Acheson

"The Best and the Brightest" by David Halberstam

"Hiroshima" by John Hersey

"The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman

Books that make you think

"The Road to Character" by David Brooks

"The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution" by Walter Isaacson

"Profiles in Courage for Our Times" by Caroline Kennedy

"Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" by Robert Putnam

Novels worth reading

"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway

"Catch 22" by Joseph Heller

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

"Redeployment" by Phil Klay

The bookseller — and speechwriter's — perspective

Muscatine is the co-owner of Politics & Prose, the much-revered independent bookstore in the heart of Washington, D.C.

For many years, she also served as Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief speechwriter.

"Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

"The Prize" by Dale Russakoff

"Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

"Preparation for the Next Life" by Atticus Lish

"Redeployment" by Phil Klay

"Soldier Girls" by Helen Thorpe

"Age of Ambition" by Evan Osnos

"Physics for Future Presidents" by Richard A. Muller

"Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald

"The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert

"The Price of Inequality" by Joseph Stiglitz

"Man Without a Face" by Masha Gessen

"Digest" by Gregory Pardlo

Listeners' choice: Recommendations from the public

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

"No explanation needed." -Lena

"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque

"If any book is to convince one that war is awful, it's this." -Mike

"Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers

This book follows the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and is a great guide "on how not to handle a natural disaster." -A caller

"Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President" by Jimmy Carter

It's an "honest self-assessment of successes, failures, shortcomings, etc., from a humble man." -Allison

"Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

It "emphasizes the weigh of decisions that presidents might need to make." -Online contributor

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

"This speaks to the Black Lives Matter movement happening today ... It takes you to the heart of America that people can miss." -Cheryl

"The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America" by George Packer

This nonfiction title looks at "what happened as favorites moved away, as the financial crisis hit, as big money took over politics and how elections changed — how some people do well in that and some people don't." -Lorraine

"Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice" by Shawn Lawrence Otto

Otto pushes "to have real science included in the presidential debates." -A caller

"Terrorists at the Table: Why Negotiating is the Only Way to Peace" by Jonathan Powell

"American leaders need to know how to handle terrorists and foreign hostiles." -Joe

"The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson

"This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate" by Naomi Klein

"1984" by George Orwell

"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt