25 Literary Luminaries Pick the Books the Define America Now

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hi, I'm Amanda Gorman.

[00:00:01]>> Hi, everybody. It's Ann Patchett.

[00:00:03]>> book that I've selected is Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Who is Government? The untold story of public service.

[00:00:26]>> [music] >> I feel like this book really encapsulates a really difficult challenge that we're facing our nation, which is how to speak in a chorus with multiple testimonies and deal with grief, [music] tragedy, and overcome them by speaking together. This is a collection of essays about different people who do jobs in our government that we didn't know anything about.

[00:00:53]Everyone [music] should read this book.

[00:01:07]I read Carlos Bulosan's autobiographical novel America Is in [music] the Heart when I was a junior in college. Set in the Great Depression, the Filipino American novelist wrote courageously of the extraordinary struggles of the migrant worker who wishes to live with dignity in a world that chooses not to see him as fully human. I honor Bulosan's indestructible love the promises of America's highest ideals.