Nearly six months into his presidency, Barack Obama retains such goodwill that even his choice of bedside reading garners praise. When the president told the New York Times that he sought refuge from relentless policy briefings in a novel about cricket-playing New Yorkers, there was none of the usual snarkiness meted out to politicians who let down their cultural guard. No, he was commended by journalists and bloggers alike - a fact that in its own way is as telling as any approval rating. Still, Mr Obama's selection of Joseph O'Neill's latest book is politically astute: Netherland is intelligent without being forbiddingly highbrow, and while set in the aftermath of 9/11, it is ultimately hopeful. An involving piece of fiction, it starts with a mysterious death, rewinds from there through a troubled marriage, and has New York as its background hum. Much of the narrative force comes from a Trinidadian dreamer, an immigrant Jay Gatsby. Chuck Ramkissoon wants to bring cricket to the American masses and says things like "My motto is, Think Fantastic". And then there is O'Neill's writing, such as this as the Staten Island ferry approaches Manhattan: "I wasn't the only person on that ferry who'd seen a pink watery sunset in his time, and I can state that I wasn't the only one of us to make out and accept an extraordinary promise in what we saw - the tall approaching cape, a people risen in light." Re-reading those lines, one can see the book's attraction for Orator Obama.