Obama opens Martha’s Vineyard vacation with book outing

( Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press ) - President Barack Obama, with his daughters Malia Obama, right, and Sasha Obama, center, leave the Bunch of Grapes book store in Vineyard Haven, Mass., Friday, Aug. 19, 2011, during a family vacation.

The White House was at pains to point out he also was briefed by aides on national and international issues.

At the Bunch of Grapes bookstore, Obama was greeted by shouts of “2012” and “Four More Years.” Dressed casually in jeans and an untucked blue polo shirt, he introduced his daughters to patrons before setting off in search of vacation reading. The girls, meanwhile, shopped with a purpose.
“They’ve got to buy some books,” Obama said of Malia, 13, and Sasha, 10, adding that one of them had a school assignment.
One woman, Terry Wilson, 63, of Alexandria, Va., told the president: “Please don’t forget the teachers.” Obama replied that he loves teachers. “How could I forget them?” he said.
At the end of the 15-minute shopping trip, Obama was seen holding five or six books, including “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley’s futuristic classic, and “The Bayou Trilogy,” a crime novel by Daniel Woodrell set in Louisiana swampland.

Story from Washington Post.

And more from PublishersLunch:

President Obama's summer reading list was released by the White House late last week and included two books he purchased at Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Martha's Vineyard and three books he brought with him:

The Bayou Trilogy, by Daniel Woodrell
Rodin's Debutante, by Ward Just
To the End of the Land, by David Grossman
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

ABC News