If you’re like me, you’re eagerly waiting for the fall so that you can finally pick up Michelle Obama’s highly anticipated memoir, Becoming! Michelle was such a wonderful, warm, and funny First Lady, and I’m excited to hear about her life and experiences in her own voice. But fall is still a long way off, so I’m picking up reads that will prepare me for her book!
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
If you’re looking for something reflective of the last election and the seemingly unending political upheaval resulting from it—likely to be touched on in Michelle’s book—look no further than What Happened, Hillary Clinton’s summation of the wild (to put it lightly) 2016 election.
If you’re looking for something less election-focused, It Takes a Village is perfect for you and is as relevant as ever. It’s a brilliant look at what we can do as a society to make sure our children grow into resilient adults.
Like Michelle Obama, Gabby Giffords is an incredible woman who has spent much of her life in politics. The book focuses mostly on the aftermath of the 2012 shooting that nearly took her life, particularly the difficulty of recovering from a traumatic brain injury. But it’s also a book about the resilience of love and how it can help us overcome even the greatest of tragedies
Gabrielle Giffords's documentary Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down will release in theaters nationwide July 15, 2022!
The New York Times bestseller by Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly—an incredibly inspiring story of adventure, public service, love, and overcoming tragedy.
Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly’s story is a reminder of the power of true grit, the patience needed to navigate unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attempt that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival “miraculous.”
As the nation grieved and sought to understand the attack, Gabby remained in private, focused on her againstall- odds recovery. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, Gabby provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark’s voice and from Gabby’s heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people together—their humor, their ambitions, their sense of duty, their longdistance marriage, and their desire for family.
A new, moving final chapter brings Gabby’s story up to date, including the state of her health and her announcement that she would leave the House of Representatives.
David McCullough is one of the most honored historians in the United States (with some Pulitzers, National Book Awards, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom to prove it!). In this book of speeches, he dives into the principles and ideals that make Americans American. McCullough questions the “American Dream” and what it means to serve your country—a perfect primer to what Michelle will likely have to say about life as First Lady.
A timely collection of speeches by David McCullough, the most honored historian in the United States—winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among many others—that reminds us of fundamental American principles.
“Insightful and inspirational, The American Spirit summons a vexed and divided nation to remember—and cherish—our unifying ideas and ideals” (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Over the course of his distinguished career, McCullough has spoken before Congress, the White House, colleges and universities, historical societies, and other esteemed institutions. Now, at a time of self-reflection in America following the bitter 2016 election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume that celebrates the important principles and characteristics that are particularly American.
“The American Spirit is as inspirational as it is brilliant, as simple as it is sophisticated” (Buffalo News). McCullough reminds us of the core American values that define us, regardless of which region we live in, which political party we identify with, or our ethnic background. This is a book about America for all Americans that reminds us who we are and helps to guide us as we find our way forward.
You should know Jesmyn Ward—and not just because we absolutely adore her. Her latest novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, is an exploration of legacy, violence, love, and grief. Thirteen-year-old Jojo goes on a road trip with his Black mother, Leonie—a drug addict who has been in and out of her children’s lives. The destination? Jojo’s White father, who is about to be released from prison. While this book may not touch on the recent election, it’s about the racial and social politics of this country, and it was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2017 (and ours too!)—for good reason. If you want to read an Obama, then you should read like an Obama.
WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a “tour de force” (O, The Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic.
Jesmyn Ward’s historic second National Book Award–winner is “perfectly poised for the moment” (The New York Times), an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. “Ward’s writing throbs with life, grief, and love… this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it” (Buzzfeed).
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.
His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister’s lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children’s father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances.
When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.
Rich with Ward’s distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic and unforgettable family story and “an odyssey through rural Mississippi’s past and present” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
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If you just can’t get enough of Michelle Obama (which we’d totally understand), then you should probably pick up Peter Slevin’s biography. A thorough account of Michelle’s life, from her time as a young girl growing up in Chicago to her days in the White House, Slevin draws Michelle as a brilliant and inspiring American icon. It’ll be fun to compare Slevin’s book with Michelle’s own words this fall.
This is the inspiring story of a modern American icon, the first comprehensive account of the life and times of Michelle Obama. With disciplined reporting and a storyteller’s eye for revealing detail, Peter Slevin follows Michelle to the White House from her working-class childhood on Chicago’s largely segregated South Side. He illuminates her tribulations at Princeton University and Harvard Law School during the racially charged 1980s and the dilemmas she faced in Chicago while building a high-powered career, raising a family, and helping a young community organizer named Barack Obama become president of the United States. From the lessons she learned in Chicago to the messages she shares as one of the most recognizable women in the world, the story of this First Lady is the story of America. Michelle Obama: A Life is a fresh and compelling view of a woman of unique achievement and purpose.
