Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
From Publishers Weekly
Elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama’s not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voy…
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating biography and a global perspective and discovery!
I like to carry a paperback or magazines while traveling and I had been carrying – and slowly inching my way through – President Barak Obama’s bestseller “Dreams from My Father”…
5.0 out of 5 stars
Disarmingly honest, down-to-earth, insightful. Brilliantly written.
My husband read out a few passages from this book and my interest was piqued. I read it over the last couple of days, at a pace normally reserved for racy thriller fiction!
1.0 out of 5 stars
“Dreams from my Father,” or, more topically, “Dreams from my Supermax,” perhaps? Or how about “Dreams from my Natl Security?!!!”
Hi-ya, everybodeeeeee! I have some verifiable information that I just have to share with everybody (even the foreigners) who are seriously thinking about spending their…
U.S. Senate hopeful Barack Obama has an inspiring story to share, and yet he doesn’t simply rest on his laurels in this critical evaluation of his life and in his continuing search for himself as a black American. He wrote “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” almost ten years ago, but his stock has obviously surged since his star-making speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, perhaps to the chagrin of Hillary Clinton…unless she is dreaming of a Clinton-Obama ticket in 2008! Growing up mulatto in Hawaii and Indonesia, Obama discusses trying to come to grips with his racial identity through a period of rebellion that included drug use, becoming a community activist in Chicago and traveling to Kenya to understand his father’s past. It is in Kenya where he discovers a nation with forty different tribes, each of them saddled with stereotypes of the others. It is also in Kenya where he recognizes the dichotomy that has been his lifelong existence between the graves of his father and his grandfather. His description of this defining moment is worthy of a passage in Alex Haley’s “Roots”.
Obama is also candid about racism, poverty and corruption in Chicago, and he pulls no punches in his account of this period. Because the book stops in 1995, it does not get into much detail on his learning experiences, culminating in both missteps and triumphs, as a state legislator. For all the value the book provides on Obama’s history, I would have appreciated a more substantive update than the preface on the last decade, as he gained political prominence in Illinois, so that we understand more why his time in the spotlight has come at this moment. Perhaps that will be Volume 2. I was also disappointed he spent so little time writing about his mother and the influence her side of the family has had on him, a narrative gap Obama acknowledges and over which he expresses regret in the preface. Perhaps inclusion of such details would have made for a less compelling story from his originally intended Afro-centric perspective; but at the same time, I think a more balanced look at his own racial dichotomy would have made his story resonate all the more given where he is now.
Obama is open in the preface about using changed names and composite characters to expedite the flow and ensure privacy of those around him, but it does somewhat lessen the impact of his story when one starts to wonder who was real and who was a fictionalized character. Regardless of these literary devices, this book is still a very worthwhile look into the background of someone who is on a major upward trajectory in the current national political scene.
2.0 out of 5 stars
I admit, I struggled to get through it.
I bought the book because I really wanted to know our president. It was an ok read, but got very boring at times.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful American
Whatever one thinks of our President (and I am a supporter), it is hard to deny that he is a thoughtful American who feels deep compassion for the underprivileged and deep love…
I first heard Barack Obama’s command of the English language in his address before the Democratic National Convention. His speech brought to mind leaders of the past who had the eloquence and passion to light a fire in people with words alone. When I saw his book, I bought it to read more of his firey, inspirational leadership. What I got instead is an insightful, sometimes painfully honest apprisal of the beginnings of that leader’s life, and it surprised me. This book was written when Sen. Obama was just out of Law School. He was offered a publishing deal after being elected the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. What he wrote is a memoir that is very obviously written by a brilliant young man. I say brilliant because his observations and examinations on racial constructs and communications in America is astute and deeply personal. As a bi-racial man growing up in both white and black America, his viewpoint is unique and his eyes were wide open. I say young because unlike most memoirs written after great accomplishments and long careers, the voice of this story is at the beginning of what may be greatness, not the end. Obama gets a chance to look back and examine his formation, and in doing so gives a beautiful and wonderfully full ‘state-of-the-union’ as regarding race. It’s not the same old stuff, and it is. It felt like my favorite college professors who could make you stop in the middle of a class and realize that you just saw something you thought you knew in a whole new light, and you could never see it the old way again.
5.0 out of 5 stars
my favourite
i think the book itself if amazing
and i like the complete servive of amazon.com
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Modern Journey
Whether you agree with Barack Obama or not, it is impossible to argue that he is not an extraordinary individual. America is a better nation for having him as a leader.
This is NOT the usual self-serving “autobiography” of a politician that was ghost-written by his speechwriter and rushed into print just before the primaries. In this lyrical, beautifully written memoir, a young man struggles to come to terms with his heritage as a child of biracial parents. It is unusually honest, even noting in an afterword where his memory clashes with that of his sister: did he meet her in an airport or a bus station? There is a painful rawness as he speaks of Kansas, which shaped his grandparents, of Hawaii, where his parents met and parted, of Indonesia where his mother remarried, of returning to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and go to school. He touches upon the wounds of youthful rebellion, of pulling back from the brink.
He says little of his mother but one can get a sense of the strength and compassion of her character by the fact that she raised her son to admire and see greatness in the character of the man who had abandoned her–who had in fact other wives. He visited only once, when the author was ten. Later, as an adult, the author travels to Kenya, his father’s country and meets his sister and his African relatives. He learns that his father was not the man he thought and that although his father had potential, it was never realized.
The author returns to America to wrestle with the issue of his brown skin and how some people in America react to that. There is self-discovery on all levels of this reflective book. To write like this a man must grapple with the demons of his own soul and emerge victorious. It’s the kind of journey and coming of age that equips a hero to slay monsters, I think.
This book is not about politics. If you are interested in Obama’s political philosophy, turn to The Audacity of Hope.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good service
that is very fast service. it was telling me about 2 or 3 weeks time. actually, it just be in my hand less a week. good
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good and on time but slower than average
Everyone should read this book. It will help us understand ourselves as well as our president. Company delivered as promised but slower than most.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book Club Choice
I listened to Dreams From My Father on CD and thought hearing it in Obama’s own voice was powerful. He has quite a flair for the dramatic and made it that much more real.