Happy New Year, Mr. President / 2010 G.W. Bush Reading Rivalry Update

Dear Mr. President,
Happy New Year! I hope this year’s letter finds you doing well and enjoying the accolades of being a New York Times best-selling author!
You may remember that I wrote to you last January, informing you of the little reading battle that I have waged with you. (Remember that U.S. News and World Report article in August 2006 alleging that you had read sixty books by that point in the year, thus sparking my righteous readerly anger?) Doing a little research, I found that you read a total of 95 books in 2006, barely behind Karl Rove.
I am proud to tell you that this year I did it – I read sixty books by August. This was no small feat or easy task! As a full-time English teacher, I found myself having to make sacrifices in the service of reading. Fun with family and friends was missed, papers sat ungraded on my desk, but read I did. Beyond simple sacrifice, though, I also owe my success to hip surgery in July that laid me on my sofa for three weeks with nothing to do but read, read, read.
Not to belabor the point, but how did you do it?!?
Overall, I completed 80 books in 2010 – a few were re-reads, but all were faithfully perused cover-to-cover. Again this year, I include my reading list in its entirety for your pleasure, but I am also including an annotated top five list made especially for you!
• The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose — Interested in what makes evangelical Christians tick, nineteen-year-old Kevin Roose leaves Brown University to enroll for an undercover semester at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He attends chapel and Bible studies, forms friendships on his hall, and attends classes all under the guise of a born-again Christian. As a man of faith, I know you will find the account of his discoveries as fascinating and thought-provoking as I did.
• Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell – Okay, just hear me out. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea from the title. In this travel-filled historical memoir, Sarah Vowell tours the country studying the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. It’s funny and insightful. While I’m sure you won’t agree with a lot of Vowell’s vocal politics, I think you will enjoy the in-depth presidential history!
• The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins – This is a series of young adult books, but Twilight they are not. The Hunger Games is a futuristic dystopian take on the United States following a global disaster. States are no more; they have been replaced by twelve districts. Led by an evil central government in the capitol, every year one young man and one young lady are chosen from each district to compete in a televised competition called the Hunger Games. In these “games”, competitors are thrown into a giant arena and forced to fight to the death. In the first book of the series, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to go into the Hunger Games as a replacement for her young sister. Throughout the course of the series, Katniss and her friends learn how to not only survive the capitol’s manipulations but attempt to overthrow it. This is a tremendously compelling read, full of political intrigue and action that is sure to keep you reading!
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – I include this book because it was one of my most favorites of the year and a truly delightful surprise. Journalist Rebecca Skloot follows the life of Henrietta Lacks, a black Baltimorean woman whose cancerous cells were taken without her consent shortly before her death. These cells became the first cells to replicate in culture, have been replicated millions of times over, and are responsible for many medical breakthroughs. Yet, Lacks’ family never knew. This is the thrilling story of those cells and the Lacks’ family’s attempt to make peace with all that was taken from them.
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell – This was my favorite book in 2010. In 2019, alien life is discovered through satellite transmissions on Earth. The Jesuit society launches a mission of priests and lay engineers and teachers to make contact with this extraterrestrial culture. After the mission loses radio contact with Earth, thirty-four years pass and only one person, now-mutilated priest Emilio Sandosz , returns. As the narrative jumps back to the inception of the mission and forward to the present Jesuit inquisition of Sandosz, the secrets of what happened on this mission are revealed. The writing is beautiful, and the themes of faith in the midst of earth-shattering tragedy are unbelievably poignant. If you are going to read a novel in the coming year, it should be this one.
As always, thank you for the reading motivation. I hope that you enjoy some of my recommendations for you; my students and I would love to know what you think!
Don’t worry, I’ll write again next year.

Tags: President Bush, president bush reading, presidential reading, reading rivalry