A Literary President
What a refreshing idea.
Laura Miller at Salon has a piece on Barack Obama’s favorite books and what they say about the man who may be the next president of the USA. He would become the most literary president in recent memory. (The piece neglects to mention Bill Clinton, who by many accounts was a voracious reader; his reading list has been overshadowed by his other appetites. It does mention John F. Kennedy, who won a Pulitzer but whose taste in literature did not stray far from Ian Fleming. By the way has anyone read the new 007 novel by Sebastian Faulks? Faulks’s other fiction is a bit too soggy for me.)
Apparently Barack reads a lot of serious fiction: his favorite authors are Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, and Philip Roth. Since books have entered the discussion, John McCain has said that his favorite book is Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls. Bit predictable. (If you are interested in the Spanish Civil War, you have to read George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, his gripping, passionate, but clear-eyed account of his experience as a militiaman.)
Ask a Filipino politician what his/her favorite book is, and nine times out of ten he/she will say, “The Bible”.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 10th, 2008 at 17:56
now, can you name a politician or two who claims the bible as his favorite book?
July 10th, 2008 at 21:37
Which brings us back to the argument that the Catholic church is enjoying some warped dictatorship over Philippine politics. Which ironically never caused our politicians to grow a conscience. Strange world.
July 11th, 2008 at 00:18
Not to draw any comparisons or implications whatsoever but… in the late 1930s Adolf Hitler who “always had a book with him wherever he went” had three personal libraries, according to the Atlantic Monthly article (May 2003) from the web link below. Though he was not a big fan of novels, he had about 7,000 books devoted to military matters and 1,500 volumes concerned architecture, theater, painting, and sculpture.
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/library/Atlantic_Monthly.html
July 11th, 2008 at 00:21
It’s either the bible or any of those Oprah-approved tomes…or the trendy pop-psychology stuff like The Secret. Ugh. People should really explore the bookstores and shoot in the dark once in a while when it comes to literary selections.
July 11th, 2008 at 04:55
I disagree. A Filipino politician would answer “Purpose Drive Life” by Rick Warren. And the one of the ten would answer “The Da Vinci Code”
July 11th, 2008 at 08:39
A few years ago, your politician would have said, “The Purpose Driven Life.”
July 12th, 2008 at 00:20
What they ought to say about their favorite books: “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Idiotic Philippine Politics”; Erap would say “Men are from Mars, Women Should Be in My Bedroom”. I always suspect that very few of our “beloved” politicians read literary novels; their free time is usually dedicated to cockfighting, horse racing, foreign junkets, watching Pacquiao fights, womanizing,shopping for new Jaguars or Cadillacs, and lounging in hotel ballrooms. See, they live a highly “stressfull” life.
July 18th, 2008 at 22:08
My teacher’s dad was one of the few people who got into the Malacanang hours after Marcos fled. He told the family that in the bedroom, he saw a very worn-out copy of Machiavelli’s “The Prince” sitting just beside the bed.