Literary Obama

Politico has learned that Obama recently finished the novel, What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentine Achak Deng by Dave Eggers: “Obama liked the book so much, a senior aide said, he urged White House aides to read it, too.”

From the New York Magazine book review:

What Is the What tells the story of a refugee from the second Sudanese civil war (1983–2005), one of the 20,000 so-called Lost Boys who walked thousands of miles from their decimated villages (their homes burned by Arab militiamen, most of the adults slaughtered) to relative safety in Ethiopia and later Kenya. [...] It is a tragedy related by the extraordinarily clear-eyed Valentino Achak Deng, one of 4,000 refugees offered sanctuary in the U.S. in 2001, who is reflecting back while trying to survive an altogether different struggle: assimilation into a culture defined by its short-term memory and chronic indifference to the world beyond its borders.

In other news:

• NPR’s “On Point with Tom Ashbrook” hosted an hour-long discussion about the President’s reading habits with Joseph O’Neill, the author of Netherland.  Listen here.

• An independent Chicago bookseller is working on a memoir to be published in January 2010, titled Mr. and Mrs. Grassroots: How Barack Obama, Two Bookstore Owners, and 300 Volunteers Did It.

• And the blog, Eat Me Daily, exposes the poor quality and carelessness of The Obama Menu: Dining With Barack Obama.