Barack Obama releases summer reading list featuring Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time

British-Cambodian writer and editor Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time (Sceptre Books/ Avid Reader Press/ Simon & Schuster) has been featured on Barack Obama’s summer reading list, which includes 14 fiction and non-fiction titles. Percival Everett’s James (Mantle/ Knopf Doubleday) and Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! (Picador/ Knopf Doubleday) also made the cut this year.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the former US president said: "I’ve read some great books over the last few months and wanted to share some of my favourites. Let me know if you have any recommendations for books I should check out." The list also includes books like Lisa Ko’s Memory Piece (Dialogue Books/ Riverhead Books) and Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot (Daunt Books Publishing/ Viking).

Other fiction books recommended by Obama include Zach Williams’ collection of short stories, Beautiful Days (Hamish Hamilton/ Doubleday), Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods (The Borough Press/ Riverhead Books) and Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman (Serpent’s Tail/ W W Norton & Company). 

In non-fiction, There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib (Allen Lane/ Random House) and Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer (Penguin Press) are both top picks, as are Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson (Virago/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Michael Joseph/ Doubleday). Other titles in this genre that made it on to the list include Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves (Swift Press/ Brookings Institution Press) and When the Clock Broke by John Ganz (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). 

A spokesperson for Pan Macmillan told The Bookseller: "It is fantastic to see three Pan Macmillan books - Everyone Who is Gone Here by Jonathan Blitzer (Picador), Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Picador) and James by Percival Everett (Mantle) - recommended by Barack Obama on his 2024 summer reading list.

"As a passionate and prolific reader, Barack Obama’s seasonal recommendations have a great deal of credibility, signalling important moments in the cultural calendar. Barack Obama has often spoken about the power of books to help us understand the world and bring us together and we welcome his choice to spotlight these three extraordinary books, striking in their exploration of displacement, identity and belonging."