But American Presidents have a way of stimulating book demand, too. An obscure techno-thriller writer named Tom Clancy got a rocket boost when President Ronald Reagan described The Hunt for Red October as "unputdown-able." I remember when the first President Bush mentioned The Guns of August as a book he thought long and hard about before the first Gulf War - though I doubt there was a surge of readers towards Barbara Tuchman's deserving history. President Clinton was a reader but for the life of me I can't remember any particular books he recommended - though I do remember an unsettling anecdote in which he was purported to have quoted a page from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury by memory. President George W. Bush once mentioned he'd been reading Camus' The Stranger - another scary moment.
So maybe my theory is buncombe and there's no relationship between presidential reading material and book sales, except for Reagan. But there has certainly been a wave of interest in certain books because of Obama. I've heard so many mentions of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln, currently #12 in Amazon sales rankings, that "team of rivals" seems to have become the phrase of the year - or right up there with "credit crisis." Now there's this article wondering which book about FDR Obama meant and what that will do its sales.
Of course, Obama is a best-selling author of his own - and he faced off against another best-selling author in Senator McCain. But I'll be waiting to see what leadership book, literary novel, or thriller he gets caught with next. It will likely be a sign of the times. Who knows? Maybe he'll be the first president to boost science fiction sales.
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