What’s Obama reading these days? Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin is one book Obama read that may be shaping his Cabinet picks. It is a book about Lincoln successfully incorporating his opponents into his Cabinet. He has also been seen reading Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, about international relations in the 21st century. According to the blog Book Patrol, Obama’s biographer, David Mendel said that Obama became a big reader in college, reading everything. His booklist included Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow (cited as his favorite before he switched to Shakespeare), Philip Roth, Nietzsche, Reinhold Niebuhr, Ralph Ellison, Malcolm X, and the legendary community activist Saul Alinsky. Book Patrol thinks that Obama will be the most literary president we’ve had in the White House in years. Pick up one of these books, and you, too, can read like a President.

A new book you may want to check out is titled: Plato and a Platypus walk into a Bar…Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. This New York Times bestseller presents concepts such as metaphysics, existentialism, relativity, and more, resulting in a book that teaches philosophy with a laugh track. (Boston Globe) What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common? Find it in our Paperback Collection.

What would Kierkegaard think?!!