Books

One Of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Latest Book Recs Is Also One Of Barack Obama's Favorite Books

by Kerri Jarema
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

When multi-hyphenate entertainer and Twitter enthusiast Lin-Manuel Miranda takes a social media hiatus, many fans wait with bated breath to read what he will share when he returns. New misadventures from the Heights to Hollywood, inspiring writing advice, sweet stories about his two sons, Gmorning, GNight missives, or behind-the-scenes tales from his March 7 guest-starring role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine? Yes to all of the above, it turns out, plus a short list of book recommendations for your reading pleasure.

Manuel is no stranger to the world of literary social media: he's taken to the platform in the past to share his summer reading list, offer up his recommendations for must-read Latina writers, and speak about becoming a bookstore owner after purchasing The Drama Bookshop in New York City. Following his latest month and a half long break from social media, he delivered "An incomplete list of my vacation reading."

Included on the list are Tomi Adeyemi's 2018 YA fantasy favorite Children of Blood & Bone; 2017's The Power by Naomi Alderman, which former President Barack Obama previously listed as one of his favorite books of 2017; and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's 2018 autobiography, Unmasked.

Check out the full list below:

And one more, for good measure:

So, just why are fans so eager to know what books Miranda's been working through while on his break? Well, besides the fact that the actor/writer/rapper has become known for his wonderfully diverse taste in books, the now legendary story of how Miranda first came up with the idea for his wildly successful Broadway musical Hamilton actually begins with a vacation.

It was while Miranda was on vacation in Mexico, "my first vacation from In The Heights, which I had been working seven years to bring to Broadway," he says in a 2016 article for HuffPost, that he picked up Ron Chernow's biography of controversial founding father Alexander Hamilton. The rest, as they say, is history. And while Miranda definitely has a lot going on right now — co-starring in the HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, adapting The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss for film and television, rehearsing for a one-night Camelot benefit concert — Miranda stans can't help but hope for the next Hamilton-level burst of inspiration to strike.

There is no word on what Miranda will bring to the stage next, but in the meantime you should definitely add his latest recs to your TBR stack... you might just find yourself ahead of the next pop culture phenomenon.