News that Barack Obama was reading Joseph O'Neill's Netherland this spring created quite a buzz. Now, off on vacation to Martha's Vineyard, we have President Obama's summer vacation reading list... and, naturally, our thoughts on the subject.

According to the White House, President Obama has taken the following books on his vacation on Martha's Vineyard:

The Way Home by George Pelecanos

Lush Life by Richard Price

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Tom Friedman - non fiction, which investigates the

John Adams by David McCullough

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

In the not-so-light (literally) reading category, President Obama selected Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded which delves into the environmental crisis plaguing the planet, and Martha's Vineyard resident David McCullough's weighty biography John Adams (a doorstopper at over 700 pages) of the life of our nation's second president.

An in fiction, President Obama keeps his reading varied...Lush Life by Richard Price seemingly random shooting that takes place on Manhattan's Lower East Side as well as The Way Home by George Pelecanos which is a thriller that delves into the relationship between a father and son. To round out the package, Obama picked the buzzed-about novel "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf which focuses on the lives of eight characters in a small Colorado community.

I remember everything about reading McCullough's masterful biography of John Adams. Michael and I were spending ten days at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara that summer, but for the first three days, I was focused on the book. I read it at red lights, between symphonic movements, and anytime that I could squeeze in a paragraph. I really couldn't put it down. Then in the fall, I "did" it with a book group, very early on in my second career, and it died an instant death. I was embarrassed and so, so disappointed: there weren't enough layers to deconstruct. From then on, I've focused on fiction but I still have a very soft spot about John Adams. It's painful to love a book and then be disappointed, but it taught me a valuable lesson. Layers and controversy are bywords now; will a book offer opportunities for various points of view?

I read LUSH LIFE in galley form and loved it, but it's too difficult to discuss a crime novel with a book group. Suddenly, everything is resolved-and that's the end of the discussion! Price is a magnificent writer, though, and I was so glad that I was introduced to him in such a rich, nuanced novel. Take a hint from Obama and read it.

I was still teaching at Greenwich High when I first read PLAINSONG, Kent Haruf's evocative novel about Colorado characters you'll care about. I always included Haruf on my outside reading lists in my American Lit. classes, and my students to this day remember their reading experiences with Haruf. Once you read one Haruf, you'll read all of them. Every time a new novel is published, I read it instantly. I wonder if President Obama will read EVENTIDE and THE TIE THAT BINDS, too. I unabashedly loved them all!