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Obama Releases Summer Reading List

The former POTUS shares his recommendations for the best beach reads every year.

Since leaving the White House at the beginning of 2016, President Barack Obama has shared a list of some of his favorite books for the summer.

Barack Obama's Summer Reading List 2023 dropped this week on his Twitter page.

"Here’s some books that I’m reading this summer," Obama wrote, "Check them out and let me know what I should be reading next."

As expected, the former President's post got a lot of trolls who sent made up titles disparaging him and the Democratic Party. However, there were a few real suggestions like, "Gender Queer: A Memoir," by Maia Kobabe.

Even Merriam-Webster chimed in, apparently disappointed that the dictionary didn't make the list.

The 2023 list includes Matthew Desmond’s “Poverty, By America;” a book about racial capitalism and Tiffany Clarke Harrison’s novel “Blue Hour," a novel about a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an unraveling America.

In a second tweet, Obama also linked to a list of banned books compiled by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

That tweet received support from librarians and educators.

The Hill notes that according to Pen America, nearly 1,500 school book bans were put in place around the U.S. in the first half of the 2022-23 school year, affecting 874 books. Most of these books are about racial or gender-based subjects.

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