Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: books

I don’t care if you voted for Trump, Sanders, Clinton, or anyone else. All views are welcome in this class, provided that they are serious (which doesn’t mean they can’t be funny) and respectful of others. Our challenge as a community will be to listen to all perspectives and learn to understand, respect, and care for those whose opinions, beliefs, and experiences differ from our own.

Do you know what can help us most in this idealistic quest? According to Barack Obama, books. In this interview with Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, Obama said that books helped him survive his 8 years in the White House:

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”

So pick up a book and find your balance.

Read Kakutani’s article (which links to the entire interview) by clicking on this photo: