This Indian Author Is On Barack Obama’s 2025 Favourite Books List, Along With A Very ‘Biased’ Pick

Former US President Barack Obama released his list of favourite books for 2025, a selection that blends history, fiction and social commentary. Topping the list is Michelle Obama’s bestselling book The Look, which the former US President acknowledged with a line of affectionate candour, calling it an obvious bias.

The Look, which debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, is framed as a fashion book but operates as a meditation on power, intention and self-definition. Illustrated with more than 200 photographs- many previously unpublished- the book traces Michelle Obama’s evolution from First Lady to global cultural figure.

Kiran Desai’s Long-Awaited Return

Also featured in the list is Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,

her first novel since The Inheritance of Loss. Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, the novel follows two Indian immigrants whose chance meeting opens into a relationship shaped by migration, family pressure and inherited histories. Set largely between 1996 and 2002, the novel privileges accumulation over plot, giving full moral weight to minor characters, domestic moments and generational memory.

Which Are The Other Books On Barack Obama’s List?

Several non-fiction works anchor the list’s institutional and historical concerns. Jill Lepore’s We the People reframes the US Constitution as a living argument, restoring ordinary citizens to the story of constitutional change. Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 1929 revisits the Wall Street crash through individual ambition and failure, drawing subtle parallels to contemporary financial debates. Beth Macy’s Paper Girl blends memoir and reportage to examine civic erosion in small-town America, while Brian Goldstone’s There Is No Place for Us exposes the rise of the working homeless, arguing that housing instability is a systemic failure rather than a marginal one.

On the fiction front, Susan Choi’s Flashlight explores trauma and memory across generations, while Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness traces friendship among five Black women against political and economic upheaval. Ethan Rutherford’s North Sun uses a 19th-century whaling voyage to examine environmental extraction and obsession and Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know closes the list with a speculative meditation on how history is remembered and misremembered.

Rounding out the selection is Zadie Smith’s essay collection Dead and Alive, which ranges across art, politics and mourning, positioning attention itself as a civic act.