The late Toni Morrison's last published work before her passing, THE SOURCE OF SELF-REGARD is an inspiring and enlightening collection of essays, speeches, and meditations over the course of four decades. Her seminal work in its entirety—from BELOVED to SELF-REGARD—is at the top of Barack Obama's 2019 summer reading list.

For fans of espionage-thrillers and female-centric narratives, AMERICAN SPY is a gripping read, it's clear why this novel made Obama's 2019 summer reading list. Marie Mitchell—a black woman in the FBI—takes an assignment to observe and seduce an African "Che Guevara" figure but a passionate romance changes everything she believes about what it means to be a spy and an American.

Tara Westover’s EDUCATED is a remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho who strives for education while still showing great understanding and love for the world she leaves behind.

Set after WWII, WARLIGHT by Michael Ondaatje is a meditation on the lingering effects of war on family. On Obama's 2018 reading list.

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones is a moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.

Read the full review of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE.

BARBARIAN DAYS, William Finnegan's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography about his "beautiful addiction" with surfing made Barack Obama's 2016 summer reading list.

The summer after Anthony Doerr's national bestselling novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Barack Obama added it to his 2015 summer reading list. ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE follows a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as they both try to survive the devastation of World War II.