What President Obama is reading this summer

Via the L.A. Times: 

• Abraham Verghese, CUTTING FOR STONE
• David Grossman, TO THE END OF THE LAND
• Ward Just, RODIN'S DEBUTANTE
• Daniel Woodrell, THE BAYOU TRILOGY 
• Isabel Wilkerson, THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS

And the National Review adds:

• Emma Donoghue, ROOM
• Marianna Baer, FROST
• Aldous Huxley, BRAVE NEW WORLD

I had earlier read on Twitter that the bookstore the President went to was refusing to release his choices. Like he has anything of which to be ashamed! Maybe he was picking up the HUNGER GAMES trilogy for the kids and felt embarrassed? Maybe he's supposed to not read anything besides his briefings (in which case, not so much a vacation as "work in a different place")? I haven't read any of these but I find the list solid. How about you? 

In 2003, Stephen King was awarded the National Book Foundation’s medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and got the same kind of blowback for daring to suggest that maybe critics should give popular fiction its due. It’s the same stuff, recycled, only this time the criticism comes coated with a lovely layer of sexism, a delightfully dismissive tone of, "Oh, you girls. What will you think you deserve next?"

--In the wake of That Which Was Franzenfreude, Jennifer Weiner is starting her own book club to highlight books she thinks are overlooked by the mainstream press. First up: Emma Donoghue's ROOM, of which I hear great things (though never got my requested review copy). Awesome!

Staycation Reading

Haven't you heard? Everyone's staycating this year instead of going somewhere. It's the newest and coolest, according to the New York Times! I'm really at the forefront of this trend because of all the staycations I took last year, which had nothing to do with the fact that I was unemployed for two months. No connection at all.

In any case, I'm staying in New York over Labor Day weekend not because I'm a sad-sack but rather because my dear old dad is extending a business trip to spend a few days in the city with me. He doesn't get here tomorrow, but today I'm off to the beach sans cell phone, avec a few (I hope) good reads:

• Emma Donoghue, SLAMMERKIN and LIFE MASK. I just got a copy of Donoghue's newest book set in 1800s England, THE SEALED LETTER, and am looking forward to immersing myself in this world while doing things its women can't do, like wearing pants.

• Joseph O'Neill, NETHERLAND. Weirdly enough, this book found its way to me at the library right after I had the opportunity to hear the author read. I've already read a few chapters, but I'm getting the sense it's the kind of book that deserves to be devoured in one (beach?) sitting.

• Jean Chatzky, MAKE MONEY, NOT EXCUSES. I had hoped to have had this read before my Talk of the Town appearance this week, and that didn't happen, but I'm interested in what I guess you could call a woman-powered approach to personal finance. (Farnoosh Torabi also worked for her at one point and thanks her in YOU'RE SO MONEY.)