Cashing in on Obamamania

I wonder if Obama knows that books with his images on their covers litter our bookstores. Some of them are actually written by himself, such as The Audacity of Hope, which has been on bestsellers' lists for quite some time now. A few of them are merely riding on the Obama popularity bandwagon. (I won't be surprised if Oprah picks The Audacity of Hope or Dreams from My Father for her book club.)

Last weekend, I saw a coffeetable book with Barack and Michelle on the cover. I didn't get to open this one, although I'm assuming that it's just a collection of pictures taken during the inauguration. The president and the first lady are one gorgeous couple, but I think they're suffering from too much publicity. We've all seen the inauguration; it's unavoidable since it was practically everywhere. Frankly, I don't want to be reminded of the pompous celebrations anymore, especially when a good number of Americans are barely making ends meet.

There's also this little blue hardback that contains Obama's inauguration speech. Isn't the speech available online -- for free? (Google is god.) Also, I read somewhere that Obama entered into a really lucrative book deal to write a children's book and a memoir. I'll read the children's book but I'll have to pass the memoir. That man lives in a fish bowl already; it's going to be hard to come up with something people don't know about.

During the inauguration, you probably have noticed that Malia was taking pictures using her camera all the time. It seems that publishers are proposing to bid on these pictures. This would be fresh take on the inauguration. I'll definitely buy that book.