Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda, Named in Barrack Obama’s 2018 Favourite Books List

On Friday, former U.S. president Barack Obama shared his annual year -end list of the books, movies and music that he “found most provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved” in 2018.

Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda, Named in Barrack Obama's  Favourite Books of 2018

“It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors, artists, and storytellers — some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before,”
As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year -end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books, movies, and music that I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors, artists, and storytellers – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Swipe through to see my best of 2018 list – I hope you enjoy reading, watching, and listening.

Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda, Named in Barrack Obama's  Favourite Books of 2018

Obama’s favorite books of 2018:

“Becoming” by Michelle Obama
“An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones
“Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die” by Keith Payne
“Educated” by Tara Westover
“Factfulness” by Hans Rosling
“Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging” by Alex Wagner
“A Grain of Wheat” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
“A House for Mr Biswas” by V.S. Naipaul
“How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
“In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History” by Mitch Landrieu
“Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela
“The New Geography” of Jobs by Enrico Moretti
“The Return” by Hisham Matar
“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe
“Warlight” by Michael Ondaatje
“Why Liberalism Failed” by Patrick Deneen
“The World As It Is” by Ben Rhodes
“American Prison” by Shane Bauer
“Arthur Ashe: A Life” by Raymond Arsenault
“Asymmetry” by Lisa Halliday
“Feel Free” by Zadie Smith
“Florida” by Lauren Groff
“Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” by David W. Blight
“Immigrant, Montana” by Amitava Kumar
“The Largesse of the Sea Maiden” by Denis Johnson
“Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” by Max Tegmark
“There There” by Tommy Orange
“Washington Black” by Esi Edugyan

Obama’s favorite movies of 2018:

“Annihilation”
“Black Panther”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Blindspotting”
“Burning”
“The Death of Stalin”
“Eighth Grade”
“If Beale Street Could Talk”
“Leave No Trace”
“Minding the Gap”
“The Rider”
“Roma”
“Shoplifters”
“Support the Girls”
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”

Obama’s favorite songs of 2018:

“Apes–t” by The Carters
“Bad Bad News” by Leon Bridges
“Could’ve Been” by H.E.R. (feat. Bryson Tiller)
“Disco Yes” by Tom Misch (feat. Poppy Ajudha)
“Ekombe” by Jupiter & Okwess
“Every Time I Hear That Song” by Brandi Carlile
“Girl Goin’ Nowhere” by Ashley McBryde
“Historia De Un Amor” by Tonina (feat. Javier Limón and Tali Rubinstein)
“I Like It” by Cardi B (feat. Bad Bunny and J Balvin)
“Kevin’s Heart” by J. Cole
“King For A Day” by Anderson East
“Love Lies” by Khalid & Normani
“Make Me Feel” by Janelle Monáe
“Mary Don’t You Weep (Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version)” by Prince
“My Own Thing” by Chance the Rapper (feat. Joey Purp)
“Need a Little Time” by Courtney Barnett
“Nina Cried Power” by Hozier (feat. Mavis Staples)
“Nterini” by Fatoumata Diawara
“One Trick Ponies” by Kurt Vile
“Turnin’ Me Up” by BJ the Chicago Kid
“Wait” by the River by Lord Huron
“Wow Freestyle” by Jay Rock (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
Obama also added a classic album, “The Great American Songbook,” to honor the late artist Nancy Wilson, who he called “one of the great jazz singers of all time.”

Uzonna Anele
Uzonna Anele
Anele is a web developer and a Pan-Africanist who believes bad leadership is the only thing keeping Africa from taking its rightful place in the modern world.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Subscribe to receive email updates

With a subscription profile, you automatically receive updates without having to return to the website and check for changes

Just In

History of Human Zoos: How ‘Exotic Africans’ Were Displayed in Zoos in the West

During this time, people from various non-European cultures were brought to Europe and the United States and displayed in zoos as examples of "exotic" and "primitive" peoples.

More Articles Like This
https://talkafricana.com/nelson-mandela-chinua-achebe-chimamanda-named-in-barrack-obamas-2018-favourite-books-list/
talkafricana.com
CC-MAIN-2023-06
468176
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:7MBDZJZWBHGV5W6YYUADUR6SHRVVRO34
<urn:uuid:59ea20bc-91f8-4ca8-80a0-760b7cb0fb73>
2023-02-08T17:43:03Z
172.67.135.251
text/html
sha1:WSJBZDRJEBYDS3RBOS4V4OOBB2UAC7ZX
<urn:uuid:34de8c78-d8b6-4c43-8596-94363cbc23db>
https://talkafricana.com/nelson-mandela-chinua-achebe-chimamanda-named-in-barrack-obamas-2018-favourite-books-list/
response
<urn:uuid:8aa5802a-fc5c-4218-a29a-af7ef6bd8b88>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2023-06
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January/February 2023
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-56
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/