{"id":1886,"date":"2015-05-06T08:18:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T14:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2015-05-06T10:03:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T16:03:06","slug":"will-the-real-bookworm-please-stand-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/will-the-real-bookworm-please-stand-up.html","title":{"rendered":"Will the real bookworm please stand up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Federalist had an interesting piece yesterday, \u201cMedia Say Obama Is A \u2018Bookworm.\u2019 Are They Sure?<\/a>\u201d which didn\u2019t cover any particularly new ground, but covered the old ground interestingly-enough: \u00a0the media fawns over Obama\u2019s supposed intellectual prowess, while at the same time deriding George W. Bush, and labeling claims that he reads, and reads a lot, as a pack of lies, where, in truth, W has made so many references to books he\u2019s read and their content in so many situations that the accusation that he and his supporters are fibbing doesn\u2019t hold water.<\/p>\n

The context behind the article: \u00a0a Washington Post report<\/a> on the president\u2019s visit to a library where he spoke to students and listed his favorite books \u2014 most of which don\u2019t seem like particularly authentic \u201cfavorite books.\u201d \u00a0He claims to have read the whole of the Harry Potter series to his kids, from age 5 to age 13. \u00a0Really? \u00a0We\u2019re to believe that at age 13, he still read to them? \u00a0He lists the Hardy Boys, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Great Gatsby, and Of Mice and Men? \u00a0The last of these has been assigned to every American 9th grader since time immemorial, but these really sound like a set of \u201cfavorite books\u201d chosen by an advisor for their poll-tested-ness. \u00a0On the other hand, maybe these were the honest selections of a fairly non-reader-y kid, if all your friends tell you that you have to read The Great Gatsby because it\u2019s sooo profound, and the LOTR and a few books from the Karl May Westerns\u00a0were the books my husband had from his school years, and about all he\u2019d read then, anyway, so there\u2019s that. \u00a0(The Post sees particular intellectual prowess in reading the LOTR books rather than watching the movies, seemingly forgetting that these are supposed to be books from his childhood\/teen years.)<\/p>\n

And, Politico, too<\/a>, as again linked to by The Federalist, says,<\/p>\n

Obama is known as a bookworm, and he has famously taken his daughters to buy gifts at two of Washington \u2019s most famous independent bookstores \u2014 Kramerbooks and Politics and Prose. During each visit, his purchases were recorded in news reports.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which, again, The Federalist identifies as more of a political stunt than anything else.<\/p>\n

Obama, of course, has a list of books that he trots out and identifies as his \u201cfavorites\u201d:<\/p>\n

Previously, Obama named his favorite books as \u201cSelf-Reliance\u201d by Ralph Waldo Emerson and \u201cSong of Solomon\u201d by Toni Morrison. On his Facebook\u00a0<\/span>page<\/a>, the president listed these two, in addition to Melville\u2019s \u201cMoby Dick,\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s tragedies, Taylor Branch\u2019s \u201cParting the Waters\u201d (a nonfiction work about Martin Luther King Jr.), \u201cGilead\u201d by Marilynne Robinson, Lincoln\u2019s collected writings and the Bible.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, there may indeed have been books that Obama enjoyed, especially in his college years, when he reports having been quite busy with the project of discovering his Identity \u2014 and college is a time when, depending on the social circle you fall into, you can end up with the notion that reading the Right Books is how you define yourself. \u00a0But I am skeptical that his reading now is of the sort that defines him as a Bookworm. \u00a0Bookworms stay up late at night because they just can\u2019t set the book down. \u00a0Obama stays up late watching sports on TV.<\/p>\n

Of course, having said this, I should acknowledge that, not long ago, I voiced skepticism of the adulation of The Bookworm<\/a>. \u00a0You and I can both name people who are successful without reading books as a hobby \u2014 and not just financially successful but intellectually curious as well. \u00a0I\u2019m just as fed up as the next one about politicians\u2019 reflexive lying, but \u00a0when it\u2019s a requirement that they provide a long list of crucially-formative books, well, what can you do?<\/p>\n

So, final thought:<\/p>\n

If you were in Obama\u2019s shoes, and had to list Favorite Books that you knew would be picked over as signalling one thing or another, what would they be? \u00a0And what (if any) are your actual favorite books? \u00a0Because, as for me, I\u2019d be hard-pressed if I had to list specific books rather than genres.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federalist had an interesting piece yesterday, \u201cMedia Say Obama Is A \u2018Bookworm.\u2019 Are They Sure?\u201d which didn\u2019t cover any particularly new ground, but covered the old ground interestingly-enough: \u00a0the media fawns over Obama\u2019s supposed intellectual prowess, while at the same time deriding George W. Bush, and labeling claims that he reads, and reads a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWill the real bookworm please stand up?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Federalist had an interesting piece yesterday, "Media Say Obama Is A \u2018Bookworm.\u2019 Are They Sure?" which didn't cover any particularly new ground, but\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/05\/will-the-real-bookworm-please-stand-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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