WASHINGTON: Barack Obama has released his eagerly-awaited annual list of favourite books that made 2019 "a little brighter" for him, continuing what the former US President said has become a "fun little tradition".

The list comprises 19 fiction and non-fiction titles on subjects ranging from surveillance capitalism and the attention economy to feminism and race in Britain, and has two volumes specifically tagged for sports fans.

"This has become a fun little tradition for me, and I hope it is for you, too. Because while each of us has plenty that keeps us busy - work and family life, social and volunteer commitments - outlets like literature and art can enhance our day-to-day experiences," Obama, 58, wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday.

The first black president of the US, who is himself an author and an avid reader, said literature and art were the "fabric that helps make up a life".

"The album that lifts us up after a long day, the dog-eared paperback we grab off the shelf to give to a friend, the movie that makes us think and feel in a new way, works that simply help us escape for a bit," he said.

Obama's eclectic list includes: "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" by Shoshana Zuboff; "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company" by William Dalrymple; "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee" by Casey Cep; this year's Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo's "Girl, Woman, Other" and "Lost Children Archive" by Valeria Luiselli among other interesting titles.

The list has books "for the sports fan": Jim Rooney's "A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney's Story From the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule" and Andre Iguodala's "The Sixth Man".

Obama began publishing lists of book recommendations in 2015, while he was still in office. He served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017.