McNally Jackson, an indepedent bookstore in downtown Manhattan, has been paying tribute to the dawn of Barack Obama's presidency with a display called "How History Was Made," featuring some of the books said to have shaped the 44th American president's mind over the years, from Where the Wild Things Are to Team of Rivals. The two-front tableau, which occupies the store's front window and a central display table, will probably be staying in place for another month; it's not until February 13 that McNally Jackson is hosting a panel discussion that will consider "the intense period of reading and study [Obama] undertook in his early twenties and draw conclusions as to what it could portend for books and ideas and his presidency."

(Which is all well and good, but to declare "a presidential intellect largely shaped by reading and study is something we haven't seen in the modern age"? Really? Wasn't the guy who had the job just before the guy who just left a Rhodes Scholar who, like Obama, graduated from an Ivy law school?)