For what it’s worth, Kamala Harris has pretty good taste in books.
Yesterday, Joe Biden announced that Kamala Harris would be joining him as his running mate on the 2020 presidential ticket. Twitter was divided, but the Democratic party was not. Because my brain has been addled by working at this website, I found myself wondering: what kind of novels does Kamala Harris read? Luckily for me, in October, Kelly Jensen asked all of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates about their favorite books. Harris, she notes, was the first to respond with her list—a good sign. Here are her stated favorites:
Richard Wright, Native Son
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
And in a 2016 Facebook post wishing readers a happy National Book Lovers Day, Harris added Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father.
It’s a solid, diverse, literary list—I can’t say I don’t love the idea of this kind of reader being (back) in the White House. For contrast, Mike Pence’s favorite novel is A Soldier of the Great War, which is fine (if obviously the wrong Mark Helprin). Joe Biden likes Ulysses, of course. As for Trump, I mean, he definitely can’t read, so any novel he claims to love is just a lie that I won’t repeat here.
