Hugo Chávez as Latin America's Oprah

Since renown book-lover Hugo Chávez gaved Eduardo Galeano's opus to Barack Obama, there's evidently been quite a hike in the book's sales:

Go figure. The book Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama at the Summit of the Americas – Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" – was ranked No. 60,280 on Amazon a few days ago, and on Saturday hit No. 14, a jump of 466,378 percent.

If I was a world leader, it would be really tempting to hand random books out with no purpose other than to raise eyebrows. I'd give Men Are from Mars to Álvaro Uribe, Of Human Bondage to Gordon Brown, Blood Meridian to Hu Jintao, The Devil Wears Prada to Lula, the complete works of John Irving to Nicolas Sarkozy, and then make vague comments suggesting that it was for a reason. "I think Sarko needs to loosen up a bit..."