Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

I enjoyed it, an interesting life

Poignant memoir on the exploration of racial divide. Pleasantly amusing to listen to Obama impersonating his Kenyan relatives. Reads like a fiction.

Fascinating

“I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else's web. Sometimes I think that's why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There's a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control....”

“Winter came and the city [Chicago] turned monochrome – black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds”

I miss my President, even if he ended up as a caricature of himself at the end.

Interesting insight to Obama's roots and you can see where some of his values and policies began.

Interesting to have finished this on Inauguration Day. Obama has a fascinating family history, complex in the way that all families can be, especially with those who are only partially known to us. He's a phenomenal writer and I enjoyed this glimpse into the past.

Very interesting Book, President Obama wrote this book before he ran for the White House Office.

Talks about the challenges he faced growing up & his experience meeting his other half Family Members during his visits to Kenya.

I feel unpatriotic saying this because I do think that President Obama is a great President, but as an author he's not my cup of tea. Maybe because I thought this book would be more about his relationship with his father, or a broader memoir of his life itself. Instead he spent a lot of time talking about his organizer job after college (but before law school). I felt like most of what he spoke of what the least interesting part of his history. I did enjoy the last part where he learned of his grandfather and father's history. Other than that, I was just plain bored.

disclaimer I'm not a big fan of non-comedic memoirs (with the exception of Alan Cumming's book) so this was not in my usual suspects of books to read.

Listen to the audiobook of this memoir of his life before presidency, because Obama reads it himself and his timing is uncanny, his accents astoundingly good - he could have become an actor, easily. Which should tell us something. The story itself is interesting and entertaining.

A VERY seductive read - part discourse on what it means to be African-American, part slightly self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing memoir, part just plain good readin'. It's also so difficult to reconcile this with Obama as POTUS - I think I would have reacted differently to all of this if I had found it in the Sociology/Black Studies section of my local bookstore, and I had imagined the author not as First Black President, Leader of the Free World, A New Hope, and Other Epithets, but as a relatively unknown activist and writer. Imagining him as the latter, this book becomes an impressive, charged, powerful autobio. I cried. A lot. But constantly remembering that this is OBAMA, the guy in the Oval Office, made me... I don't know, love it even more? Feel something strange and beautiful in my insides? Because it's not political, except in a deeply philosophical/sociological way, and it's not self-aggrandizing in the way a politician's bio would be. He knows he's smart, that's all.

To some extent, I don't think the presidency was on his horizon when he wrote this - so it's a refreshing, “backstage” look into his mind. And what a mind it is! (And what a speaker/writer he is!) Obama comes across as deeply intelligent, a humanist at heart (his relishing of other people's stories was especially touching), honest about his conflicts (and his misfit years with attendant drug use!), and always striving - a big dreamer, indeed. It's amazing (and reassuring) to think some version of this thoughtful, angry young man is in the White House. There is hope!

Not too bad. A little disjointed at times and I do wish there was more about Michelle. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook.

I get intimidated by long reviews, so I will keep this one short:

Obama, as a writer, is incredibly articulate and meticulous. As politicians go, he's honest with his mishaps and up front with his “reckless” behavior in his past, which was really quite tame for the average well-intending American.

Through reading this book, I came to see that Obama is very human like the rest of us, yet has the insight, dedication, and cultural experience that few of us have the chance to absorb out of life. His struggle with multi-racial identity, his frustration with uncooperative people, his stubbornness to succeed in his ambitions, and his open-minded attitude towards people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds are apparent in his stories of his childhood, then young adulthood, and visit to Africa to explore his (1/2-)roots.

I would not say this is an intense read. There is a humbleness and mildness to his writing that made this book a very leisurely and mind-opening experience.

I vowed to finish this before the inauguration, and I did, but I definitely think my enjoyment was hampered by having started it at the end of fall semester...this is not necessarily a memoir that can be read in bits, and I think I didn't experience the full force of the narrative as a result of a haphazard reading schedule. Bits-and-pieces aside, obviously it was great. I can't pretend like there aren't things I think are indicative of someone's first book (first memoir, especially)...like at 400-ish pages, perhaps there was some streamlining to do? But it would be impossible for me to have read this without getting even more excited about a president I'm already ecstatic about. He is a complex, nuanced, and deep thinker, about to take office in a job that requires nothing less. Plus, he's a better orator than writer, I think (which is saying quite a lot), so I'm stoked for the next 4 years of speeches!

The most fascinating points of this book are the details of Obama's family structure and his coming of age and awareness of his roots. I love how the narrative depicts a learning process and maturation. What I find most appealing about this man (as candidate or as writer) is his earnestness. Despite his sophistication, I really believe that he operates out of a genuine hope and desire to bring people together, to reconcile diverse viewpoints. Obviously, his background makes him uniquely suited to do this.