Former President and forever Reader-in-Chief Barack Obama’s podcast, A Great Book, dropped today on Audible. Each of the six episodes in the limited series features Obama in conversation a different thinker/writer/artist about a book that has “profoundly shaped his worldview and our society.”
In the debut episode, Obama sits down with Tom Hanks to discuss Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning novel, Gilead. It’s a thoughtful and wise reflection on a thoughtful and wise book about family, faith, community, and the beauty and challenge of being human.
We’re thrilled to share this exclusive clip in which Obama and Hanks consider what it means to live a purposeful life.
All six episodes of A Great Book are out now, exclusively on Audible. They’ll be available on YouTube and everywhere else you listen to podcasts later this year.
Here’s the full line-up:
- Episode 1: Tom Hanks on Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Episode 2: Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) on The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Episode 3: Jill Lepore on All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
- Episode 4: Ben Rhodes on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
- Episode 5: Percival Everett on Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- Episode 6: Lauren Groff on All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy