Books on Barack Obama

As Barack Obama gears up to take oath, a lot of publishers, book-sellers and authors are also gearing up to make some money - by releasing Barackabilia, as the Washington Post calls it.

The New York Times also carries a similar story - Books About the Rise of Obama and reviews not one, not two, not even three but FOUR books. With the Americans around the world caught in an Obama frenzy, the authors have understood that a golden way to monetize Brand Obama.

These are the Books :

1. “A LONG TIME COMING”

The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama

By Evan Thomasm, Illustrated. 220 pp. PublicAffairs. $22.95

2. THE PLAN

Big Ideas for Change in America

By Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed

201 pp. PublicAffairs. Paper, $13.95

3. OBAMANOMICS

How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics

By John R. Talbott

218 pp. Seven Stories Press. Paper, $16.95

4. OBAMA’S CHALLENGE

America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency

By Robert Kuttner

213 pp. Chelsea Green Publishing. Paper, $14.95

5. Barack Obama: 44th President

by Avery Krut (Whitman, $49.95)

The fifth one, according to Washington Post is - Not so much a book as a cupboard between hard covers, it is full of tickets, bumper stickers, reprints of speeches, penciled letters from admiring kids and all sorts of other electioneering byproducts, each tucked into its own envelope-like slot!

According to the New York Times  -  For sheer speed and competence, the most impressive of these recent books is Evan Thomas’s “ ‘Long Time Coming,’ ” compiled from the reporting of the political writers of Newsweek (a magazine for which I occasionally write). A perceptive, smoothly written and generally fair- minded account of both presidential campaigns, it is, nevertheless, a contribution to the creation of the superhero image that has surrounded Obama over the last six months. In describing his important speech on race in March 2008, for example, the Newsweek writers (who are far from alone) describe a “tour de force,” the “sort of speech that only Barack Obama could give.” Afterward, “he found everyone in tears — his wife, his friends, hardened campaign aides. Only Obama seemed cool and detached.

Happy Reading!