Pelican Bookstore

Our “What They’re Reading” choice this week goes hand in hand with his second inauguration this upcoming week. Yep, you guessed it Barack Obama. His favorite book is Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

This new version of Morrison’s 1977 novel Song of Solomon is a fitting reminder of her early creative mastery. Song of Solomon is a powerful, sensual, and poetic exploration of four generations of a family mistakenly named Dead. Told through the eyes of “Milkman,” a rare male protagonist in Morrison’s wonderful catalog of unforgettable characters, we discover a century’s worth of secrets, ghosts, and troubles. Milkman is faced with resolving the differing memories of his parents and his mysterious aunt Pilate, while questioning the historically charged realities thrown at him by the death of real-life victims of racism like Emmett Till as viewed by his lifelong friend Guitar. Lynne Thigpen was born to tell the author’s stories, catching every lyrical note and each painful cry. A perfect marriage of author and reader, this will win new audiences and reassure audio veterans that by listening to books one truly can appreciate the magic of storytelling.

Barack Obama is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold office.

Since Anne Hathaway won a Critic’s Choice award last night and has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in Les Miserables this week, we decided to add the honor of being our second “What They’re Reading ” celebrity to her growing list of accolades. Anne’s favorite book is  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgsen Burnett.

Though Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote more than forty books, none remains so popular as her miraculous and magical masterpiece,The Secret Garden. In the book, Mary Lennox is sent to Misselthwaite Manor, on the Yorkshire moors, to live with her uncle after her parents die of cholera. There she discovers her sickly cousin Colin, both love no one because they have never been loved. They are the book’s spiritual secret gardens, needing only the right kind of care to bloom into lovely children. Mary also discovers a literal secret garden, hidden behind a locked gate on her uncle’s estate, neglected for the ten years since Colin’s birth and his mother’s death. Together with a local child named Dickon, Mary and Colin transform the garden into a paradise bursting with life and color. Through their newfound mutual love of nature, they nurture each other, until they are brought back to health and happiness.

Anne Hathaway is an American actress and musician. She came to prominence after playing Mia Thermopolis in the Disney film The Princess Diaries. Since then, Hathaway has starred in dramatic films such as Brokeback Mountain, The Devil Wears Prada, Becoming Jane, Alice in Wonderland, Love and Other Drugs, The Dark Knight Rises, and Les Misérables, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

As 2013 begins, we say in with the new! We’ve got all kinds of new things in store for you this year starting with a new segment for our blog called “What They’re Reading.” Each week we’ll highlight a notable person, politician, celebrity, athlete or author and tell you their favorite book! It’s a fun insight into what other people are reading or have read since we can’t spy on their personal bookshelves. So we thought we’d start off with one of the better known authors of our generation, Stephen King. His favorite book is Lord of the Flies by William Goulding.

If you’re not already familiar with it, the classic tale tells the story of a group of English school boys who are left stranded on an unpopulated island, and who must confront not only the defects of their society but the defects of their own natures. The book first appeared in 1954 it received unprecedented reviews for a first novel by a newcomer.

Stephen King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books.