Presidential pick
Barack Obama shares his favourite books, music and movies of 2018.
FORMER United States President Barack Obama weighed in on the best pop culture of 2018, posting his favourite books, movies and music of the year on his official Facebook page.
Sorry, television. Better luck next year.
“As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favourite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists,” Obama wrote.
“It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books, movies, and music that I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved.”
“It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors, artistes, and storytellers,” he continued, “some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before.”
First up on Obama’s list? Becoming, written by one of those “household names” he mentioned earlier, wife and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
“Obviously my favourite,” he added. Obama then went on to recap the books he namechecked earlier in the year, including books from his summer recommendations list: Educated by Tara Westover, Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones and Factfulness by Hans Rosling, among others. Meanwhile, Obama’s list of top 2018 films would rival the year-end list of any of your favourite film critics. In fact, eight of Obama’s 15 favourite films of the year show up on Times’ film critic Justin Chang’s Top 20 of 2018.
Obama’s list included Annihilation, Black Panther, Blackkklansman, Blindspotting, The Death Of Stalin, Eighth Grade, Burning, If Beale Street Could Talk, Leave No Trace, Minding The Gap, The Rider, Roma, Shoplifters, Support The Girls and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Delving into the world of film is a relatively new move for Obama, as previous years allowed him only enough time to list his favourite music and books of the year.
The former president’s music preferences are as diverse as ever, spanning indie, pop, rock, soul, R&B and hip-hop and spans new releases, including Janelle Monae’s Make Me Feel and Courtney Barnett’s Need A Little Time, music standards including The Great American Songbook by Nancy Wilson, and newly-released, posthumous songs such as Prince’s Mary Don’t You Weep.–