A president who rarely reads has launched a book club for all of America
Donald Trump is making America read again.
It started during the campaign, when J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” became the go-to text explaining Trump’s appeal among low-income white voters. It continued last month, when a public spat between Trump and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) boosted sales of Lewis’s trilogy, “March,” and memoir, “Walking With the Wind.” And then came the dystopian-fiction craze, when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway immortalized herself in America’s political lexicon by describing White House falsehoods as “alternative facts” — and George Orwell’s “1984” shot to the top of Amazon’s sales ranking.
A president who rarely cracks books has unwittingly launched a book club for America. Every feud, every outrage, every did-he-really-just-do-that episode propels a new literary discussion. In the months since the election, I’ve frequently been asked to suggest books explaining the convulsions of the Trump era. The question has even inspired me to start a book group of my own; the quest for insight is always better in good company.
As with any book club, national or personal, the key question is what book comes next — a more urgent matter now that those choices appear to reflect the political fears, grievances and aspirations of America’s citizen-readers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2017/02/09/a-president-who-rarely-reads-has-launched-a-book-club-for-all-of-america/?utm_term=.ea9dc941da0b&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
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