Recommended Reading

The New York Times asks sundry intellectuals to offer book recommendations to the presidential contenders. Daniel Drezner offers his own recommendations as does Ezra Klein. Sadly, nobody mentions Heads in the Sand.

But if I were president, I think I'd really be trying hard to stay away from books about politics and public policy -- you get that all day! Plus I'd say one good thing about being president is that if you ever want some writer/thinker/analyst to explain his ideas and their implications for you, you can easily get him to stop by your office for a chat. I'd say the president should focus his reading energies on big, long nineteenth century novels. War and Peace, Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment -- those are some good books! And with any luck, they'll remind you that there are crucial elements -- probably the most crucial elements -- of human life that transcend the domain of the political.

Comments

a president who reads anything would be a refreshing change, now. Keeping updated with security updates from V.P. Cheney and Fox News hasn't proven to be very useful to our nation.

Posted by zic | June 2, 2008 12:01 PM

Thank you, Matt.

A pity that the triple-decker 19th-c novel is made for campaign trips where you're on a stagecoach, not a charter jet. Plenty of books coming out now seem almost designed for a) campaign jet reading; b) toting by candidates.

But I'd add Middlemarch to your list: it's a novel with politics, but it's not a political novel in the way that Disraeli's (and even Trollope's) are political novels. And it's a very good novel.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 2, 2008 12:03 PM

I thought Moby Dick was originally published in serial form, which is why it's so long...

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | June 2, 2008 12:05 PM

I'd take The Brothers K over Crime and Punishment in the Dostoevsky column, myself. But fortunately, you don't have to choose just one.

Posted by Led | June 2, 2008 12:08 PM

War and Peace, Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment -- those are some good books!

sounds like somebody was a comp lit major at Harvard...

Posted by SMK | June 2, 2008 12:17 PM

a president who reads anything would be a refreshing change, now

That would be a refreshing change how? In 2006, President Bush had read 60 books by August: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060820/28presidency.htm

Despite the constant smears by the left, Bush is well-read and more highly educated than 99%+ of the world; public speaking skills and intelligence are only weakly correlated, as B. Hussein Obama proves.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:19 PM

a president who reads anything would be a refreshing change, now

That would be a refreshing change how? President Bush read 60 books from January to August of '06 alone: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060820/28presidency.htm

Despite the constant smears by the left, Bush is well-read and more highly educated than 99%+ of the world; public speaking skills and intelligence are only weakly correlated, as B. Hussein Obama proves.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:19 PM

a president who reads anything would be a refreshing change, now

That would be a refreshing change how? President Bush read 60 books from January to August of '06 alone: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060820/28presidency.htm

Despite the constant smears by the left, Bush is well-read and more highly educated than 99%+ of the world; public speaking skills and intelligence are only weakly correlated, as B. Hussein Obama proves.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:22 PM

Good, or great books are dangerous to the merchants of fear and loathing.

Posted by ferd | June 2, 2008 12:22 PM

I'd recommend Graham Greene, such as the Quiet American (only, in contrast to Bush, hopefully the candidate will *get it*) or Our Man in Havana.

Because candidates can often live in a bubble even if they don't want to, some very good sociological reporting such as Studs Terkel would be valuable.

And since the winner will inherit our vast prison system, the Gulag Archipelago might be a useful refresher...

Posted by Glockenspieler | June 2, 2008 12:25 PM

That would be a refreshing change how? President Bush read 60 books from January to August of '06 alone...

Yes, and if you believe the official propaganda North Korea puts out about its leader, the birth of Kim Jong Il was accompanied by a solar eclipse and a thousand phoenix-dragons springing forth from Mt. Meru. Or some sh*t like that.

Posted by James Gary | June 2, 2008 12:26 PM

If Obama weren't intelligent, then why was he the president of the Harvard Law Review?

Posted by Andy | June 2, 2008 12:26 PM

1) The President will have little time for non-directed reading, so I'll keep it short and to the point:

"The Persians" by Aeschylus. (Lattimore translation, naturally)

2) SHOUTOUT to Joe Klein's Conscience:

The People's Light and Theatre in Malvern are putting on a production of this in Sept -Oct. They're pretty good. They've done several of Shakespeare's plays in the past.

Of course, I've always had a soft spot for a troup that would adopt such a Bolshevik name in a hard core Republican area.

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 12:27 PM

I think all the candidates, and any institutional leader for that matter, should check out The Difference by Scott Page.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | June 2, 2008 12:27 PM

I'm sorry about the triple post. I got some CGI errors when I tried to post, and when I hit "refresh" on firefox it came back with the comment posted three times. Please delete the duplicates and this comment.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:28 PM

If Obama weren't intelligent, then why was he the president of the Harvard Law Review?

If Obama weren't intelligent... are you fucking serious? To answer the question you tried to ask, we know Harvard uses a very heavy affirmative action program, and it's possible that the Harvard Law Review did too.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:33 PM

Mitt Romney clicks his way through literature:

http://home.nyc.rr.com/dradosh/ppaol.html

Posted by Richard | June 2, 2008 12:34 PM

Robert Wright's Non-Zero is full of insight. Much of its later chapters has proven prescient.

Posted by Eric | June 2, 2008 12:34 PM

We will delete all of your comments due to their insipid and vacuous nature.

Posted by Indeed | June 2, 2008 12:34 PM

Heh. American Hawk is revealing himself to be not so bright when it comes to maneuvering in power circles such as the Harvard Law Review...comical.

Posted by Indeed | June 2, 2008 12:39 PM

Poor Shite Hawk: makes his trolling debut here, and flunks out with a triple-post. And no, you don't get extra McCain Points because the Atlantic's server times out before refreshing.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 2, 2008 12:43 PM

Eric Hoffer's The True Believer and The Ordeal of Change.

Posted by James F. Elliott | June 2, 2008 12:45 PM

1) If Obama has any time left over, I would also reco that he read -- or the Folger Theater in DC perform -- the long forgotten "Cato" by Joseph Addison.

Performances of "Cato" were put on here at Valley Forge by George Washington for his troops during that bleak winter -- in defiance of Congress's orders.

See http://www.constitution.org/addison/cato_play.htm

2) Possibly our current President might stave off the death of our Republic if he saw the play that motivated our First President during the bloody birth of our Republic. A play which shows the death of the Republic on which ours was based.

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 12:49 PM

Why is it that those who need to play uber-patriot always turn out to be complete maroons?

Does anybody *really* believe that George Bush has the time, or the inclination, to read 7 1/2 books a month?

Posted by Ethel-To-Tilly | June 2, 2008 12:54 PM

It would also be good if the Folger Theater produced Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice".

To remind Obama that Haim Saban and the Neocons are out there -- and they ain't happy.

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 12:57 PM

Crackers by Roy Blount Jr. Where America's 3rd most scorned president went wrong.

***

American Hawk uses the argument that if the evidence is imaginable and supports his position then it's so. AH, that's so 2003.

***

Crime and Punishment over The Brothers Karamazov. TBK is ~4 times longer than it needs to be.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 2, 2008 12:58 PM

LA Confidential for a reminder about domestic policy, The Mouse that Roared for foreign policy. And maybe Candy for arts and culture policy.

Posted by Gene | June 2, 2008 1:04 PM

"it's possible that the Harvard Law Review did too.

Posted by American Hawk | June 2, 2008 12:33 PM"

You obviously know nothing about this. People scratch and claw their way towards being editor of the Harvard Law Review. It's a great way to end up at a white shoe law firm after getting your degree. A lot of Harvard Law people would kill their own mother to get that position. They're not just going to throw it out to a random black guy. According to Deborah Dickerson, people were still talking about how capable Obama was at Harvard Law when she was there years after he graduated.

Posted by Reality Man | June 2, 2008 1:09 PM

Not that anybody solicited my opinion but I included HITS amongst my list of 5, right next The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Posted by Jim | June 2, 2008 1:11 PM

Yes, it would be nice for politicians to realize that social problems are not so easily soluble, and that many are based in human nature and not changing political arrangements. As I haven't the attention span, as of yet, for the books Matt mentions, I'd suggest a different course. I'd like the president to be someone who has sat down and contemplated the Good, the things of permanence and inherent value in a reality full of trivialities and distractions. I'd suggest the works of John Ruskin, Walter Pater, Roger Fry, Kenneth Clark, John Berger, John Summerson, Ernst Gombrich, and Robert Hughes. Also, I'd suggest he make use of the many great museums in Washington, and just generally be curious about the human experience as reflected in what humans have made.

Posted by Robert | June 2, 2008 1:15 PM

GORE VIDAL -

"I can only answer in the negative: I want them not to read The New York Times, while subscribing to The Financial Times."

hahaha i love that crotchety old bastard.

Posted by BA | June 2, 2008 1:35 PM

Troll Hawk, congratulations on being as completely ignorant about law school as you are about politics and, I assume, like.

But as a helpful hint, lift the lid of the toilet before you use it.

Posted by Jonesy | June 2, 2008 2:16 PM

If Obama has any time left over, I would also reco that he read -- or the Folger Theater in DC perform -- the long forgotten "Cato" by Joseph Addison.

Oh, no. He's firmly opposed to torture.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 2, 2008 2:24 PM

I'd say the new Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series.

It's nice to see that Luke grew up to be a little less whiny than he was in ANH, ESB and RotJ.

Because, jeez, I think someone with a job as serious as the President of the United States is supposed to have, a little space fantasy would be a good thing.

Posted by Trigger | June 2, 2008 3:10 PM

If he's going to go fiction, I'd recommend the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, one of the better fantasy series I've read in quite some time.

Posted by J | June 2, 2008 11:08 PM

How about reading a lot of fairy tales and Greek mythology and fables. Seriously. They are useful for weaving into political speeches. Maybe Candide or some novels from benighted regions (such as Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, Scheherezade, etc....). Maybe some 17th century Chinese ghost stories. Maybe Kafka's Trial too.

If you go for the explicitly political, how about Kundera or war fiction of Boll?

Posted by Robert Nagle | June 3, 2008 6:18 AM

I wouldn't read War and Peace for a reminder that there are crucial elements of human life that transcend the domain of the political, since as I remember, one of the main themes of the book is that all life's events occur within the frame of history.

Posted by doug | June 3, 2008 11:12 AM

From Obama's facebook profile:

Favorite Books: Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Moby Dick, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Parting the Waters, Gilead (Robinson), Self-Reliance (Emerson), The Bible, Lincoln's Collected Writings

Posted by Another Chris | June 4, 2008 2:09 AM