When I woke up in the morning of 24 June last year, in shock, I thought things couldn’t get any worse, that this was the political nadir of my life. Silly me. Things can always get worse and they just have. I spent yesterday in a daze of horror and disbelief and, later, significant amounts of alcohol. But I’m tired of ranting – I know I need it and I’m grateful to my friends who have facilitated it, but enough. Today, I want to talk about something – someone – else.

I liked Barack Obama from the start. There are many reasons for this: his intelligence and eloquence, his basketball skills and quiet coolness, his excellent taste in women. I don’t think he was a perfect president – this is also an impossible thing to expect – but even his mistakes seemed to me to come from the right place, often born from thoughtfulness and caution and bitter historical experience. It is a tricky business, being a fan of a politician, and in particular of a politician of a foreign country whose domestic politics you aren’t intimately familiar with. I do think that in the case of the US, though, it is fair that we have opinions on their presidents based on how they appear from the outside. They’ve brought it on themselves.

In addition to all the excellent reasons I’ve listed above, I liked Obama because he’s a reader – and a writer, although that’s less relevant here. I know you don’t have to be a voracious reader to be a good president. You don’t even have to be interested in books to be a good person. I simply have a personal preference for people who read and think deeply about books. The New York Times has just published an interview with Obama on his relationship with books and it’s a joy to read. I have nothing but undying love for a president who has read The Three Body Problem (very ambitious Chinese SF) and can convincingly quote an obscure Estonian poet when delivering a speech in Tallinn. There are several lists online of works he has mentioned or recommended, the best compilation I’ve found is this one by People.

I was going through these lists yesterday, thinking how well they reflect my image of Obama (serious, curious, with a huge capacity for empathy) when inspiration struck. A few of the recommended titles – Seveneves, The Underground Railroad, The Sixth Extinction – are on my immediate TBR list and there are many I’d like to read eventually. So I’m going to use Obama as a motivational tool and start my own little Obama Book Club. I’m not going to read everything he has recommended – some things I have read already, some are not for me, and I also have my own lists to get through. I will read a proper handful this year, though, and encourage you to do the same: Obama’s recommendations are diverse enough for you to find something you might be interested in. If nothing else, there’s Harry Potter! I would also say that every book you think Obama would approve of, qualifies for the #obamabookclub.

In the coming years, we are going to need Obama more than ever. We’ll need to remember that things have been different and can be again. I am constantly thinking these days what I can DO, I’m sick of feeling powerless and sick of complaining. So this is what I’ll do, this is my contribution to grass root activism. It’s a very small thing, but it is something and it is mine and it could be yours. Join me and Read Like Obama.