On September 14 president Obama and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson met to discuss faith, politics, and communities. Last Monday the New York Review of Books published the first part of this conversation. According to Obama, he met with Robinson because he was anxious to have an unscripted discussion with someone he admired: “One of the things that I don’t get a chance to do as often as I’d like is just to have a conversation with somebody who I enjoy and I’m interested in,” he told Robinson, “to hear from them and have a conversation with them about some of the broader cultural forces that shape our democracy and shape our ideas and shape how we feel about citizenship and the direction that the country should be going in”.