President Obama is on Martha’s Vineyard for his annual vacation, and he’s packed a hearty and diverse book bag for the beach.
Obama has taken Oprah’s advice and picked up Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, a new novel that imagines a physical railroad under the ground during American slavery. According to Reuters’ Jeff Mason, his reading list also includes several memoirs: Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, about the author deciding to raise a goshawk in the wake of her father’s death, and William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.
The presidential reading list also includes two big page-turners: Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, a sci-fi adventure about space explorers returning to a post-apocalyptic planet Earth, and Paula Hawkins’ thriller The Girl on the Train, new in paperback and soon to appear on the big screen.
Altogether, these books tally up to more than 2,000 pages of reading—but if he doesn’t finish them this vacation, he’ll surely find the time in January.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Where Trump 2.0 Will Differ From 1.0
- How Elon Musk Became a Kingmaker
- The Power—And Limits—of Peer Support
- The 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
- Column: If Optimism Feels Ridiculous Now, Try Hope
- The Future of Climate Action Is Trade Policy
- FX’s Say Nothing Is the Must-Watch Political Thriller of 2024
- Merle Bombardieri Is Helping People Make the Baby Decision
Contact us at letters@time.com