For the past few years, Former President Barack Obama has diligently published lists of the music, movies, and books he’s enjoyed most each season and year. With the summer season now drawn to a close, the Obama Foundation published his favorite summer reads of 2025, and we couldn’t help but notice that it includes Stephen Graham Jones’s excellent book, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. In case you missed it, we’ve already named The Buffalo Hunter Hunter as one of 2025’s best books. 

Obama described The Buffalo Hunter Hunter as “A mash-up of history and horror that explores the brutal legacy of conquest against Native American peoples,” and it was featured on his favorite summer reads list alongside books like Katie Kitamura’s Audition (“A quiet novel about the ways we hide our true selves from others — and ourselves.”), S.A. Crosby’s King of Ashes (“One of my favorite crime fiction writers delivers in this story of family, ambition and corruption in a racially charged and violent South.”) and Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain biography (“A comprehensive biography of one of the most important writers and social commentators in American history.”).

Of course, Obama provides an accurate description of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, but it’s an interesting pick to spotlight alongside more straightforward reads by writers like Chernow. Stephen Graham Jones is a beloved horror writer unafraid to pen New Weird stories, and he’s one of the brightest stars in American horror fiction right now. For instance, Jones’s Jeff VanderMeer-endorsed Sterling City novella depicts a Texas farmer’s discovery of an enormous caterpillar on his land after a Martian moon explodes in space. Jones’s stories are memorable precisely because they provide a reading experience you’ve likely never had before. 

It took the American literary scene years to recognize American horror’s other great Horror Stephen – Stephen King – as a bona fide literary master. But Obama’s inclusion of Stephen Graham Jones on his favorite summer reads list is an encouraging sign that even an establishment figure like a Former President can still enjoy the hell out of a cutting-edge American horror writer. Stephen Graham Jones deserves to be seen by the public as the preeminent American horror writer of our times, and hopefully Jones’s recognition from The Buffalo Hunter Hunter will get him closer to this position. Â