Top 10 books for Obama officials

Robert McCrum is assistant books editor for the Observer. Back in March 2009 he named a list of ten books for Obama officials, based on the premise that "we want the men and women who are running the world economy to have a bit more light and shade [than can be found in, say, Epictetus] in their intellectual hinterlands , and to have the confidence to go off-piste in their reading. In other words: to relax, to let their minds spin freely, to loosen their imaginations in the company of a great book."

One book on his list:

F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby.

Set in the age of "miracles, art and excess", this dark mystery explores, in a different way from Wharton, the shadows of the American dream to which Obama so idealistically subscribes. A useful corrective that every American legislator should be made to read once a year.

Read about another book on McCrum's list.

The Great Gatsby appears among Kate Atkinson's top ten novels and John Krasinski's six best books, and on the American Book Review's list of the 100 best last lines from novels.

--Marshal Zeringue