President Obama's summer reading list

While the President may be enjoying what many describe as a working vacation, a White House official says he did take time to buy precisely two books for himself yesterday during a visit to Vineyard favorite Bunch of Grapes bookstore with daughters Sasha and Malia.

Three more books were brought to the island from home.

The five books average 512 pages in length, and are predominantly fiction.

Whether or not Mr. Obama will have a chance to actually read them is another question altogether, but behold, the Presidential Summer Reading List:

1. "The Bayou Trilogy," by Daniel Woodrell (496 pages) Crime novels featuring detective Rene Shade.

2. "Rodin's Debutante," by Ward Just (272 pages) A coming-of-age novel set against "the crude glamour of midcentury Chicago."

3. "Cutting for Stone," by Abraham Verghese (560 pages) A first novel telling the story of twin brothers "born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon."

4. "To the End of the Land," by David Grossman (592 pages) Fiction involving "a mother's powerful meditation on war and family."

5. "The Warmth of Other Suns," by Isabel Wilkinson (640 pages) The lone non-fiction title tells of the migration of Black Southerners to Northern and Western cities in the mid-20th century.