Obama Family Bookstore Purchases Make Headlines

When the first family goes Christmas shopping it’s big news, of course. And the watchers take note of not only where they went, but what they bought. When their destination is a bookstore, we get interested, too.

On Small Business Saturday, President Obama and his daughters hit Washington indie Politics and Prose, in the end purchasing 17 books. From the New York Times:

The president and his daughters, Sasha and Malia, browsed the shelves and chatted with customers before buying two bags full of books at the store, where they also shopped at this time last year. According to a White House print pool report, Mr. Obama at one point held a patron’s baby.

At the checkout counter, a cashier asked the president, “You from out of town?” Mr. Obama replied, “I am. Do I get a discount for that?” Another cashier jokingly offered a “neighbor discount.”

“I’ll take that,” Mr. Obama said, in an exchange captured by a television pool video posted by CBS News.

According to the White House, the Obamas bought the following books:

• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
• Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business by Barbara Park
• A Barnyard Collection: Click, Clack, Moo and More by Doreen Cronin
• I Spy Sticker Book and Picture Riddles by Jean Marzollo
• Nuts to You by Lynn Rae Perkins
• Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• Mossflower by Brian Jacques
• Mattimeo by Brian Jacques
• Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
• Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos