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President Obama Throws Googly, Is Reading Joseph O'Neill's "Netherland"

Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Barack Obama, cricket, David Leonhardt, George Bush, Joseoph O'Neill, Kurt Andersen, novels, Zane Grey

Martin Schneider writes:

At least according to David Leonhardt in the New York Times. A few quick reactions.

1. I'm reading it too! I'm almost done (bet that overachiever Obama beats me to the end, though—I'm savoring). I'm fairly certain it's the first time that the president and I are reading the same novel at the same time. Did Clinton read Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century? I didn't read any Zane Grey during the Bush years....

2. I admire Obama's taste. I've run into a few people on Twitter and elsewhere calling Netherland overrated, but surely it's a quality piece of work, even if one feels that it's been overpraised. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, but then again, I'm not done yet. Leaning towards thumbs-up, though. What did you make of it?

3. I wonder how much Obama knows about cricket. I know next to nothing.

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Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

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