President Barack Obama Loves Books & Lists, So He’s Combining Them For A New Audible Series
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- Barack Obama is hosting 'A Great Book with Barack Obama,' a six-episode Audible podcast launching September 24 under Higher Ground's first-look deal with the audio service.
- The series covers six novels — The Fire Next Time, Song of Solomon, All the Pretty Horses, Gilead, All the King's Men, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — with Obama joined by 'six luminaries' for each conversation.
- Higher Ground previously produced podcasts at Spotify before inking its current Audible deal in 2022; 'A Great Book' is the production company's sixth Audible project alongside Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast, The Wonder of Stevie, and four others.
- The announcement lands one week after Obama released his summer reading list, which included Michael Pollan's A World Appears, George Saunders' Vigil, and Colson Whitehead's Cool Machine — extending his books-to-public-figure cadence from print into audio.
- Obama said in a statement that the six featured books 'stayed with me throughout my life' and that 'literature matters now more than ever,' framing the series as a defense of reading during a turbulent moment.
- Audible Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza called the show an embodiment of Audible's mission to deliver 'transformative storytelling through the intimacy of audio.'
Why it matters: The series is Higher Ground's sixth Audible project since defecting from Spotify in 2022, deepening the Obama audio brand at a platform competing for premium spoken-word listeners. Its September 24 launch follows Obama's summer reading list by one week, threading print and audio into a single promotional cycle.
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