Sunday, September 11, 2011
Whatever happened to the presidential book race?
When it came out in 2008 that President George W. Bush was an avid reader--about 100 books a year, non-fiction--the left, particularly librarians, were incredulous, critical of the selections, or used the word "allegedly" when reporting it. Then about two years later it was revealed that Obama was more into fiction, and read very little--maybe 10 books a year. Then they just made excuses. This past summer it was explained as "escapist fiction" for his vacation and books for his daughters. Well, maybe there will be something for the ALA Banned Books Week, because I'm sure there's a good reason Obama doesn't read and George Bush does.
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6 comments:
After it came out that Bush read a lot more than Obama, the press just didn't say much about it.
ALA needs to look into the racial disparity of their reading lists.
I personally am on my 49th book of the year, some audio while driving, some book books. And that was with about a month where I was too busy to read. If Bush read 100 books in a year, then he wasn't doing his job. I see the Presidential role as being FAR TOO BUSY to read 2 books a week.
Well, good for you, but I know a lot of readers, and Bush's record isn't exceptional--although it would be tough for you, and impossible for me. You obviously think Obama's light weight fiction and fantasy reading is just fine for a light weight president.
Yes good for me, lucky me has the time and energy and inclination to read. But for MANY YEARS I did not have that luxury. I was consumed with a career, a job, and many other things that kept me BUSY. I know many business people who lead exactly the same kind of busy lives. And the President, if he's doing any kind of a job, is also consumed with the duties, meetings, briefings, reports, planning. And has little or NO time to read for pleasure. The exercise he gets is a time to process all the information and is better than reading some novel or some arrogant person's thoughts. So when the Cheney-Bush twins came out with their up-man-ship,,,, 'I read more than you do, nah nahnah nahnah". I just thought to myself, they are either lying,, or not working. They were too busy figuring out how to use the power of the office for their own personal gain, wealth and more power. No, I don't fault Pres. Obama for reading 10 books a year. In my mind that's a perfect number given his schedule and life commitments!!! Let his advisers read the rest and give him synopses.. And I could easily read 100 books a year, but I think the 85 I'll probably hit will be just fine in my balanced life.
Lucy
Well, since I can't read 49 books a year and do anything else, I'm going to judge that you can't either.
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