I've just read a book (so you don't have to) entitled Inside Obama's Brain, of which arguably the best thing you can say in these over-subtitled times is that it refreshingly has none. There are some insights there that will eventually make their way into a book review, but I can't in good conscience let these boot-lickety quotes about Obama by irritatingly ubiquitous historian Douglas Brinkley go by without notice:
"He's a voracious reader and he's got an insatiable curiosity," professor Douglas Brinkley asserts. "The cut of his jib, we haven't seen anything like it since John Kennedy."
He is, Brinkley adds, "a bit of an artist. I'm constantly amazed at how much he's read and how much he knows. Obama seems to read and it has effects on him. He's not a policy wonk, per se, just acquiring information. He allows information to flow in in an emotive way. This happens to very smart book-lovers." […]
"Obama truly has this aesthetic, literary side to him. It's very refreshing to fellow writers. Because we recognize it, and we feel he's at least an auxiliary member of our tribe. He's extracting the wisdom from the literature and not just what's expedient. He's willing to be moved by the written word, poetry, song, painting. He hasn't written it off in the box of 'arts.' It all gets integrated into his daily life. There's an opportunity here for writers to actually play major roles in our public life for the first time since the sixties. Obama will read a good book or will ask to be informed about that book."
See that link below that says "comments"? Please leave one, because everything I come up with sounds…unseasonal.
