Today YouTube premiered the December episode of “BookTube” featuring Barack Obama and a unique discussion about the recently published first volume of his presidential memoirs, A Promised Land. President Obama is joined virtually by YouTube creators Mark Rober, LaGuardia Cross, Marques Brownlee, Team2Moms, and TwinsthenewTrend, who ask questions about, and share their reactions to, A Promised Land. President Obama answers the creators’ questions and covers topics ranging from science in the White House, his interest and appreciation of music, to his experience of fatherhood and much more.
Watch the episode here.
In November, YouTube released an early look at a moment in this BookTube episode where President Obama surprises YouTubers TwinsthenewTrend as they were filming what they thought was going to be a pre-recorded message for the episode of BookTube. Twin brothers, Fred and Tim Williams, known for their popular videos of their reactions to classic songs, discussed Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin,” a song featured in the memoir as well as the playlist accompanying the memoir’s release. During the taping, President Obama called in via video conference to surprise the brothers. You can watch that video here on TwinsthenewTrend YouTube Channel.
A Promised Land is published by Crown, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.
For those using this time to catch up on their reading, BookTube has several episodes for readers to jump into. Other episodes have featured Michelle Obama (Becoming), Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point and Talking to Strangers), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments), James Patterson (Alex Cross), Melinda Gates (The Moment of Lift), Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption), Jacqueline Woodson (Red at the Bone, Brown Girl Dreaming), David Sedaris (Calypso), an episode where several famous authors share their current reads, an episode focused on mental health with authors Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone), Haemin Sunim (The Things You Can Only See When You Slow Down) and Vivek Murthy (Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World), Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush (Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life), Doctor Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D. (Zoobiquity and Wildhood), Jason Reynolds (Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You), and the latest episode with Nick Hornby (Just Like You). You can watch all BookTube episodes here.